Nothing significant is heard about Foxconn in recent months. The last one was about the possibility of a Foxconn-Sirin blockchain phone. That was right after that news Foxconn acquired Belkin, Linksys, and Wemo in an $866 million deal. Believe it or not, we remember saying Foxconn would make the first Nokia-licensed Android smartphone. Google was also noted to buy Foxconn patents before for an undisclosed amount. So what’s new about Foxconn? Well, it’s doing some scaling back specifically in its mobile division.
This sounds like bad news but maybe it’s all for the better. We understand the mobile industry is slowly growing. You can say it’s stagnant but we believe more advanced innovations and technologies will be introduced in the coming months and years especially since 5G is set to make a lot of things possible.
Foxconn is said to be putting its focus on automotive electronics as a response to some decline in revenues. Apparently, the company hasn’t been receiving a lot of orders as before.
That is normal for big businesses but it’s Foxconn. We didn’t expect this to happen soon but we’re not exactly surprised. Most OEMs may be moving to manufacture its own components or phones especially if they have the resources.
Right now, hundreds of resources and engineers will transfer to other groups. We find it interesting that Foxconn is making this decision when about 90% of the revenue comes from the Android sector. Cutbacks are happening so we don’t know what will happen to phone development in the future. Net loss last year was listed at $857 million despite supplying materials for Lenovo, Sharp, Xiaomi, Google, and Nokia among others.
Foxconn employees have been leaving the company perhaps even before they could be relocated. The new automotive focus could make sense for next-generation vehicles but nothing solid is taking shape yet.
VIA: ASIAN NIKKEI REVIEW
