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
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS