Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) revenue rose 33 percent year-on-year last month, accelerating from the previous month thanks to demand for servers powering artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Apple Inc’s main manufacturing partner, also known as Foxconn, reported sales of NT$548.3 billion (US$17.1 billion) — a record for August. That pace was up sharply from an annual growth of 22 percent in July.
Hon Hai’s topline has begun to recover from a protracted smartphone slump, helped by a growing business supplying data center operators with servers containing Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators.
Photo: CNA
Last month, it said it expected revenue to grow over the rest of the year, reversing successive quarterly declines.
Some investors preach caution. Nvidia reported earnings that failed to live up to expectations, triggering a record selloff. Analysts have issued fresh warnings that AI’s potential is thus far largely untested and unproven.
Still, Hon Hai has set itself the goal of securing 40 percent of the global AI server market, relying on relationships with many of the world’s biggest tech companies and its own manufacturing expertise.
The Taiwanese company also benefits from consumer electronics demand, and the addition of AI features and enhancements might encourage mobile users to upgrade their devices. Shipments of the iPhone in China have in recent months bounced back, and the global smartphone market is recovering. Apple is preparing to unveil the iPhone 16 next week.
“Entering the peak season in the second half of the year, we anticipate our operation to gradually gain momentum,” Hon Hai said in a statement yesterday.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
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