Apple Inc’s major manufacturing partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) reported its slowest monthly sales growth since February, stoking concerns about demand momentum for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and iPhones.
Hon Hai, also a key server assembly partner to Nvidia Corp, yesterday reported sales of NT$804.85 billion (US$25.18 billion) for last month, up 8.59 percent year-on-year and marking the highest October level in the company’s history.
Analysts expect the company to grow its sales by 15 percent to NT$2.13 trillion this quarter.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, Bloomberg
Hon Hai’s revenue in the first 10 months of this year was NT$5.53 trillion, up 9.57 percent year-on-year and the highest for the period on record, company data showed.
The iPhone assembler’s tepid sales growth appeared to reinforce Apple’s weak forecast for the holiday quarter.
“Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, operations are anticipated to show both quarterly and yearly growth,” Hon Hai said in a statement, without giving details.
Hon Hai and other hardware suppliers are riding a wave of spending on servers and data centers from big tech firms including Meta Platforms Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.
However, questions are bubbling up about how long the spending will last without a killer AI application to justify the large infrastructure investments.
Still, the capital expenditures of the four largest Internet and software companies — Alphabet, Amazon.com Inc, Meta and Microsoft Corp — are set to climb to well over US$200 billion this year, a record sum for the group.
Executives from each company told investors recently that they would continue to spend large sums next year.
Separately, Hon Hai subsidiary ShunSin Technology Holdings Ltd (訊芯科技) is seeking a permit to invest US$80 million in northern Vietnam to produce integrated circuits, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a document from the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The proposed plant in Bac Giang Province would focus on producing and processing electronic components, specifically IC boards, the document said.
ShunSin plans to begin operations at full-scale in December 2026, with annual capacity of 4.5 million units, it said.
All products from the Vietnam ShunSin plant would be for export to the US, the EU and Japan, the document added.
Hon Hai already has major operations in Vietnam and has invested more than US$3.2 billion there since fist entering the Southeast Asian country in the 2000s. Most of its manufacturing plants are in the northern provinces of Bac Ninh and Bac Giang.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of US Affordable Care Act enrollees expired on Jan.1, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year. Democrats forced a 43-day US government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their political aspirations this year. US President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash. In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A US House of Representatives vote
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This
US President Donald Trump on Friday blocked US photonics firm HieFo Corp’s US$3 million acquisition of assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp, citing national security and China-related concerns. In an order released by the White House, Trump said HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China” and that its 2024 acquisition of Emcore’s businesses led the US president to believe that it might “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” The order did not name the person or detail Trump’s concerns. “The Transaction is hereby prohibited,”
RSS