Terry Gou's visit to China, Mate60 orders sparked heated discussions: the road to cooperation starts again
As the largest foundry in China and Apple's main foundry, Foxconn has undertaken a large number of iPhone orders in Chinese mainland, but not many people know about it. From a small foundry with only a few dozen employees to a Fortune 500 company not long ago, Foxconn's growth is inseparable from the strong support of Chinese mainland.
Chinese mainland's relatively cheap labor, complete industrial chain and sufficient hydropower resources made Foxconn choose to set up factories in China. Thanks to the preferential policies of China's manufacturing industry, Foxconn has grown rapidly in Chinese mainland, and the scale of foundries is also expanding.
At the same time, Foxconn also seized this opportunity, as Apple's main foundry factory, won a large number of Apple product foundries for Foxconn, and pushed it to the throne of the world's top 500 and the world's No. 1 foundry. Foxconn entered the Chinese market early on, as it attracted many people because of its lucrative salary and benefits package. However, with the gradual increase in the salaries of Foxconn's domestic foundries, its competitive advantage is gradually declining, coupled with its semi-military management, Foxconn is nicknamed by many people"Sweatshops"。
In a sense, Foxconn and China's manufacturing industry have a win-win cooperation, which also makes Foxconn not only expand the scale of foundry in the Chinese market, but also form a close cooperative relationship with Huawei, becoming one of Huawei's main foundries. However, unexpectedly, China's development has instead made the United States"Grievances"。
At the request of the United States, Foxconn terminated its cooperation with Huawei, and even Foxconn's founder Terry Gou arrogantly said: Foxconn set up factories in Chinese mainland to feed Chinese mainland. In response to Apple's call to shift production capacity, Foxconn not only went to India to build a factory, but also withdrew its 300 billion production capacity in China, laying off more than 100,000 jobs cumulatively.
If Foxconn was proud when it left Chinese mainland, then now Foxconn is so humble, a few days ago, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou visited Huawei many times, hoping to get an order for Huawei Mate60Pro, which has been fully proven. The move comes after Foxconn announced its new headquarters in Zhengzhou, with plans for the next 10 years of development in Henan.
Foxconn and Huawei's cooperation and transformation.
Foxconn has maintained a close relationship with Huawei for many years, and Foxconn makes many Huawei mobile phones, and Huawei is already Foxconn's largest customer. It can be said that Foxconn has benefited a lot from cooperating with Huawei, not only to obtain long-term and stable income from Huawei, but also to improve its influence and status in the industry.
However, no one thought that after the United States put Huawei on the list of Huawei equipment, cut off Huawei's chips, software, services, and operating systems, and banned Huawei products from entering the American market, Foxconn's attitude changed 180 degrees.
Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou personally decided to end the partnership with Huawei, saying that the move was aimed at protecting Foxconn and creating more jobs in Chinese mainland.
Gou's remarks obviously went against his original intention. Foxconn, Apple's main foundry, terminated the cooperation with Huawei, undoubtedly to the United States, but he is worried that if he cooperates with Huawei, it will reduce Apple's foundry orders to Foxconn. To put it simply, Foxconn gave up Apple or Huawei in favor of Apple.
In addition, there may be another reason for Foxconn to terminate its cooperation with Huawei, that is, after Huawei is sanctioned by the United States, the number of related mobile phones will inevitably decrease, and if Foxconn continues to cooperate with Huawei, it will not be able to get too many orders, so it terminated its cooperation with Huawei.
Mate60 manufacturing orders raise concerns.
According to reports, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou has visited China many times, and the news is believed to be Foxconn's hope to get OEM orders for Mate60 series mobile phones, indicating that Foxconn hopes to return to Apple's ** chain.
It can be said that the reason why the mate60 series can attract so much attention around the world is not only that it has made breakthroughs that are not inferior to Apple's in a number of technologies, but more importantly, it is as localized as high as 90%, and does not use any American technology components, including chips, electronic components and other components, all provided by domestic manufacturers.
The Mate60 is currently expected to ship between 15 million and 17 million units, which means that its order value is tens of billions of yuan, and it also means that it will be a hot seller, highlighting the huge business opportunities in the manufacturing industry.
For Foxconn, the order for the Mate60 is very important, because Foxconn has followed Apple to build a factory in India, but the level of manufacturing in India is low, and the pass rate of the iPhone 15 is only 73%, while in Europe it is only 34%. This also means that Foxconn's factories in India will inevitably encounter many difficulties that will seriously affect Foxconn's revenue.
In addition, Foxconn is also facing strong growth from other domestic foundries, while Foxconn's market share in China is declining, and Foxconn's arrogant attitude and a public health incident at Foxconn's Zhengzhou plant last year have made it more difficult for Foxconn to recruit people in China.
If Terry Gou wants to restore the cooperative relationship with Huawei, it will definitely not be so easy.