Two years ago, in order to get rid of its dependence on China, Apple decided to move its production line out of China and start production in Vietnam, India and other Southeast Asian countries. Foxconn also followed in Apple's footsteps, laid off a large number of employees in China, and then went to India to invest $1 billion to build an Apple production line. Foxconn head Terry Gou also said: "The mainland cannot live without me, and I will provide food for the people of the mainland." In order to cater to the wishes of the United States and "completely break with Huawei", Foxconn, which has been working for Huawei, unilaterally stopped cooperation with Huawei.
So starting in 2019, Guo Taiming also began to pay the price for his mistakes, and his performance continued to decline. The epidemic in Southeast Asia is also spreading, and factories are struggling. Not long ago, Foxconn's Indian factory suffered another "thunder", which directly led to a 50% reduction in production capacity. According to the latest reports from foreign media on May 12, more than 100 Foxconn workers in Tamil Nadu, India, have been confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus, and factory operations have been greatly affected. It is said that production capacity has been cut by more than 50%, especially the most impacted. Orders from customer Apple.
After being completely deceived in India, Guo Taiming could not escape the law of "true fragrance", so he began to slap his face and set his sights on the mainland market. Previously, Guo was confident in his judgment and believed that China's manufacturing industry would gradually decline. In fact, there are quite a few people who are bearish on the Chinese market, and even a group of Hong Kong and Taiwan businessmen who look down on Chinese manufacturing have withdrawn their investment. These people always have a sense of superiority, but they forget whose food they eat.
Over the past 40 years of China's reform and opening up, there have been too many opportunities to get rich. Terry Gou successfully used this "east wind" to make a lot of money. From the obscure Made in China to the "Foxconn Thirteen Jumps" that shocked the society, the world's factory became a "sweatshop", and then followed the example of the United States, which also made Terry Gou take a wrong step, causing Foxconn to continue to decline in performance. But in any case, Gou's 33 years in Chinese mainland have indeed witnessed the past of Chinese manufacturing. Today, let's review Terry Gou's entrepreneurial journey.
Guo Taiming was born in 1950 and his ancestral home is Jincheng, Shanxi. Father Gai Lingrui was a policeman in the old society. In 1949, he moved to Taiwan due to changes in the current situation. The three Guo brothers were all born in Banqiao District, New Taipei City, Taiwan Province, because the family was not very wealthy at that time, so Guo Taiming began to work part-time to support his living expenses when he was young. Rich work experience has also allowed Guo Taiming to accumulate a lot of social experience.
In 1971, Gou Taiming successfully graduated from the "China Maritime College" in Taiwan Province and met his first wife, Lin Shuru. Lin Shuru is a real rich girl. Her father, Pak Yan Lam, is one of the top 10 richest people in Hong Kong, so this marriage has just begun. was unanimously opposed by the Lin family, but Lin Shuru still insisted on marrying Guo Taiming, a poor boy at the time. It turns out that Lin Shuru's vision is really good. This young man, who was not favored by the Lin family at that time, later single-handedly founded a company with a market value of NT$300 billion. Hon Hai Empire.
In the third year of graduation, Terry Gou decided to pursue a career in business. His mother, Chu Yongzhen, gave Guo Taiming 100,000 yuan. $100,000 was not a small amount at the time. After receiving the funds, Guo Taiming immediately started a "Hong Kong business" with a friend. Haisu Enterprise*** But Guo Taiming is a novice and has no entrepreneurial experience before. The company soon ran into a crisis. In less than two years, all 300,000 yuan of funds were lost. However, Gou did not withdraw from the competition because someone pulled him out of the competition. Well, there are still many nobles in Gou Taiming's life. After being frustrated, his father-in-law Lin Baixin immediately provided a subsidy of 700,000 yuan, and told him: "Young man, work hard, don't let my daughter suffer with you." ”
After receiving the second investment, Guo Taiming combined his previous experience and directly changed the company's name to "Hon Hai Industrial Co., Ltd. ***" and began to engage in precision OEM. He specially introduced a mold production line from Japan and set up an electroplating department within the company. and stamping workshops. At that time, Taiwan's property speculation business was very popular, but Guo Taiming still insisted on doing business. This time, Guo Taiming is progressing smoothly, and the company's scale continues to expand. With the birth of the world's first PC computer, IBM PC, in the United States, Guo Taiming seized this opportunity and invested 16 million yuan to enter the PC foundry industry and reaped the first wave of dividends.
In 1985, Terry Gou opened a branch in the United States and established Foxconn's own brand.
At that time, Taiwan's labor costs were no longer suitable for the labor-intensive OEM industry, and Guo Taiming caught up with the mainland's 1988 policy to encourage Taiwan compatriots to invest. So after many investigations, Guo Taiming built a Foxconn factory at the foot of Bunshan Mountain in Xixiang, Shenzhen.
Gou Taiming's decision was not wrong. In the next few years, the factory developed steadily, and in order to retain Foxconn, Shenzhen ** set aside a piece of land for the factory to use, so such a plot appeared:
One day in 1993, Guo Taiming stood on the top of a mountain in Longhua Town, Shenzhen, waved his hand and said to the accompanying ***: "I want all the land I can see in front of me." At that time, Gou was just a manufacturer of computer accessories. Ordinary Taiwanese businessmen, there are at least 1,000 acres of wasteland in front of them, can Foxconn take it?It may sound a little too crazy, but Guo Taiming immediately said: These lands may not be enough for Foxconn's development. Three years later, Longhua Industrial Zone was officially completed, which is now Shenzhen Foxconn Industrial Park.
At the same time, Terry Gou also made a big decision. He is preparing to take his business to a more complex level. This decision made Foxconn Apple's first-generation factory. Since then, Terry Gou has begun an era of prosperity in the manufacturing industry. Even during the 2009 world economic crisis, Foxconn still did not stop its growth momentum and even received orders from Huawei.
Guo Taiming also delivered a speech entitled "** Ten Years, Win in Chinese Mainland" at the shareholders' meeting, impassionedly saying: In the past 20 years, Foxconn has been the spokesperson of "Made in China";Over the past 20 years, Foxconn has been the spokesperson of "Made in China";Today's Foxconn has the ability to become the best spokesperson for "Created in China" in the future.
Shortly after this exciting speech, the incident of Henan young horse jumping forward set off the "Foxconn Thirteen Jumps" that shocked the society, pushed Foxconn to the forefront, and made the name seem to be tightly tied together. to "jump off the building". In fact, this is not the first time Foxconn has been exposed to problems. In 2006, Yicai published an article entitled "Foxconn Employees: The Machine Punishes You for Standing for 12 Hours", which made Foxconn the first to become synonymous with "sweatshop".
Guo Taiming was furious when he learned the news, and even made a claim of 30 million, but in the end he still failed to withstand the criticism of **.
If Guo Taiming was still very confident at that time, then in this "continuous jump", Guo Taiming was almost on the verge of collapse. He once said: I am most afraid of receiving ** at 11 o'clock at night. In the end, just when everyone thought that Foxconn was synonymous with horror, Foxconn attracted a large number of young people to the factory with crazy salary increases.
Terry Gou didn't understand why employees committed suicide one after another, and he didn't think about what was wrong with living like a machine day in and day out. At that time, Gou was only focused on his business empire, and Gou was also going along the way, and Apple gradually saw the United States as its boss. According to statistics, one out of every seven iPhones in the world is produced by Foxconn.
In 2019, Guo Taiming earned money in Chinese mainland for more than 30 years and has been the richest man in the Bay for a long time. However, when he put down the bowl and cursed his mother, he began to eat meat.
At that time, the United States was suppressing Huawei, trying to force many companies to stop supplying important accessories such as Huawei's ** chips. At this point, Huawei is in crisis. Guo Taiming not only did not help Huawei, but refused to help Huawei, and in order to send a surrender letter to the United States, he "cut it in two" with Huawei, and fell into the ground. The trick is obvious.
Subsequently, it gradually withdrew its investment from the mainland and followed the example of the United States in building factories in India. But his judgment was completely wrong. Although Indian labor is cheap, it is inefficient, and Indians are not as hardworking and hard-working as the Chinese. In addition, India's infrastructure is poor, and factory operations are often problematic. Now there is another large-scale novel coronavirus infection, and we have to close the factory.
In May this year, Zhengzhou Foxconn began recruiting new employees with high bonuses. I don't know if Guo Taiming wants to "regret it". I don't know if Guo Taiming, who said that the mainland market is inseparable from me, is still counted.
But sometimes it's hard to recover from missed opportunities. After Gou's trip to Southeast Asia, the mainland market is no longer "non-Foxconn". Nowadays, domestic OEM companies have emerged, among which Luxshare Precision and BYD are representatives. Now Luxshare Precision has obtained OEM orders from Apple, and BYD has received orders from Huawei and Xiaomi. As for the future of Foxconn, it is difficult to guarantee that it will not be ruthlessly kicked out by Apple like OFILM.
In fact, for a "unfamiliar" and arrogant capitalist like Guo Taiming, you can borrow a sentence from Cao Dewang. He said those who were out of stock in the Chinese market had to leave the same way.