Foxconn

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Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.

logo
legal form Company Limited
ISIN TW0002317005
founding 1974
Seat Taipei , TaiwanTaiwanRepublic of China (Taiwan) 
management Terry Gou
Number of employees 803,196 (2017, Taiwan only)
sales $ 135.4 billion (2016)
Branch electronics
Website www.foxconn.com

The Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. ( 鴻海 精密 工業 股份有限公司  /  鸿海 精密 工业 股份有限公司 , short 鴻海 精密  /  鸿海 精密 , Hónghǎi Jīngmì ) is a multinational company operating under the name Foxconn Technology Group ( 富士康 科技 集團  /  富士康 科技 集团 , short 富士康 , Fùshìkāng ) appears on the market. It was founded in 1974 by Terry Gou as a manufacturer of plastic products . The company has been listed on the Taiwanese stock exchange since 1991 . Today it is one of the largest manufacturing companies for electronic products in the world. In February 2016, Foxconn announced that it would acquire 66% of the shares in the ailing electronics company Sharp for 700 billion yen . However, after Sharp's expected loss of around 170 billion yen in fiscal 2015/16 became known, an amount of around 389 billion yen was agreed. On April 2, 2016, the contract was signed, according to which the shares go to Foxconn for 388.8 billion yen. It is the first time that shares in a Japanese electronics company have been acquired by a foreign company.

With a turnover of 154.7 billion US dollars and a profit of 4.6 billion US dollars, Foxconn ranks 105th among the world's largest companies according to Forbes Global 2000 (as of fiscal year 2017). According to the Fortune Global 500 , it is one of the 30 companies with the highest turnover worldwide (as of fiscal year 2016). The company had a market capitalization of approximately USD 50 billion in mid-2018.

Corporate structure

Foxconn is one of the world's largest manufacturers of electronics and computer parts. As a contract manufacturer, the company produces for Hewlett-Packard , Dell , Apple , Nintendo , Microsoft and Sony, among others . The group produces or produced the game consoles Nintendo DS , Wii , Xbox 360 and PlayStation to order .

Foxconn is also considered a home supplier for Intel . About 75% of the motherboards sold under the Intel name are manufactured by Foxconn. With 42 million motherboards sold and more than 52 million PC cases in 2005, Foxconn is the world market leader. Worldwide Foxconn is No. 1 manufacturer of processor sockets , No. 5 manufacturer of connectors and No. 2 manufacturer of heat sinks with 25% market share. In 2016 Foxconn had sales of 135 billion US dollars. This makes it the largest privately held manufacturing company from Taiwan. At the same time, Foxconn is the largest exporter in China with the highest number of units shipped.

Foxconn has been trying to expand its business with offers for private users since 2005. These products include, for example, motherboards , barebones , graphics cards , power supplies and fans . In Europe these are offered under the Foxconn brand, in Asia as WinFast. The model names and versions are usually identical. Another brand of the group is Leadtek , with which the group is also represented in the segment of graphics cards. Foxconn claims to hold around 21,000 patents and involve over 15,000 engineers in the USA, China and Taiwan in the development of new products.

Factory shenzhen

In China, Foxconn tried to gain a foothold in electronics retailing together with the electronics retail chain Media-Saturn , which was part of the Metro Group . The first Media Markt branch in China was opened as a joint venture between the two companies under the name Wan De Cheng ( 萬 得 城  /  万 得 城 ) on November 17, 2010 in Shanghai . Further openings were planned, but all branches were closed again by the end of April 2013.

Employee development

Foxconn is one of the largest private employers in the world and one with the largest number of employees . The number of employees has fluctuated widely over the years.

The BBC reported in May 2016 that Foxconn has laid off up to 60,000 employees in favor of automated manufacturing facilities since 2014. The company later confirmed these numbers.


Fiscal year
(April 30th) 		Employee
location Taiwan
2014 900.758
2015 726.772
2016 830.174
2017 803.126
2018 (preliminary) 604.640

Locations

The company has had manufacturing facilities in mainland China since 1993, including in Shenzhen , Kunshan , Wuhan and Yantai . Development centers in the USA and Japan were added in 1994, and production facilities in Great Britain , the USA and in the Czech town of Pardubice , which is centrally located in Europe , from 1998 to 2000 .

In addition to the factory that opened in Pardubice in 2000 , where PCs are manufactured, the company has had another factory in Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic since 2010 , where servers are manufactured. Foxconn has a total of around 5,000 employees in the Czech Republic (2015).

In 2010 Foxconn took over the Slovak subsidiary from Sony and has since opened a plant in Nitra, which opened in 2007 with 1,200 employees, in which around 3 million LCD screens are manufactured annually.

criticism

The group has been facing serious allegations since 2006. Above all, the low wages and inhumane working conditions are criticized:

In 2006, the English newspaper Mail on Sunday accused Foxconn of inhumane working conditions in the manufacture of the iPod . There are reports of 15-hour working days and monthly wages of 40 euros, which are well below the regional minimum wage of 80 euros. According to Spiegel Online , 80 hours of overtime instead of the 36 hours permitted by labor law are common. The unfair treatment of workers and the condition of the accommodation were also criticized. This is said to have been refuted by a visit by a delegation. According to a worker at Foxconn, her working time is twelve hours a day, six days a week and is paid at the equivalent of 240 euros (including surcharges for night work and overtime), whereby the costs for meals and overnight stays in the company's own accommodation are covered. In other factories, the working conditions are even worse. The psychological pressure is enormous, as there are, for example, fixed times for going to the toilet and a ban on speaking at the workplace, which was eased somewhat in the course of two further suicides, as well as personal defamation by the foreman if the rules are not adhered to. In addition, the roughly 400,000 workers in the two factories would have to live together in a very small space. For many of the workers, leaving the factory and residential premises, which represent a single unit, is only allowed with a special permit.

At least 13 cases of employee suicide occurred in Shenzhen in early 2010 , mostly by jumping off the roof of the company's buildings. After the ninth death, the management responded with a letter to the employees, according to which they should undertake not to kill themselves or to harm "in an extreme form". By the end of May of that year, the number of deaths rose to eleven. A company representative then announced that he wanted to raise wages. From October 1, 2010, employees at the Shenzhen factory will receive double their previous wages (2000 yuan, about 244 euros). One hopes “that the employees get a positive attitude towards life”. According to studies by the NGO Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (Sacom), wages at Foxconn are usually only slightly above the statutory minimum wages. The number of known suicides in Shenzhen rose to a total of 13 by early August 2010. In June 2010 it was announced that Foxconn wanted to close either all or some of the factories in China, since they went to China exclusively because of the low wages and this locational advantage would be lost if the announced wage increases were implemented. In July 2010, 250 workers in a Foxconn factory in India had to go to hospital due to insufficient protection against harmful substances.

The question of whether there was a particularly high suicide rate among employees was controversial. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs replied that the rate, based on the number of known cases, was well below the average in China and the US and that working conditions at Foxconn were good. Terry Gou, chairman of the Foxconn-owning group, said 11 suicides among 400,000 employees were below the Chinese average, he was "told by experts." Corresponding statistical comparisons were criticized in the China Economic Review, since the comparison with the data for China as a whole is not meaningful, since the workers at Foxconn are mainly young men between 18 and 25 in cities, while the suicide rates in China are higher especially among women in rural areas. The latest available comparative data is also from 1999. A psychologist from Tsing Hua State University commented on the cases in the media that a suicide rate of 2 to 3 cases per 100,000 people at Foxconn was the same as the rate among university students and was not unusually high.

Due to the “unethical to illegal” working conditions, Foxconn was nominated for the Public Eye Award in 2011 , which honors companies which, according to the initiators, behave particularly irresponsibly towards people and the environment. The award ceremony, supported by Greenpeace , concluded in 2011 that the psychological and physical pressure on young Chinese migrant workers and students persisted.

In an investigation report by several universities in Taiwan and China based on discussions with 1,800 workers at Foxconn, the scientists came to the conclusion that the workers at Foxconn are forced to work 80 to 100 hours of overtime per month (the legal limit would be 36 ) and a significant number of occupational accidents are not dealt with.

In mid-January 2012, Apple joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which is supposed to investigate working conditions.

After it became known on February 18, 2012 that Foxconn had increased the salaries of its employees by up to 25 percent retrospectively as of February 1, the company was construed as an attempt to influence the ongoing investigations in its factories in China, why the criticism of the world's largest electronics manufacturer intensified.

According to an FLA study of over 35,000 Foxconn workers published on March 29, 2012, the FLA limit of 60 working hours per week was exceeded in 3 Foxconn factories examined, as well as the maximum 40-hour working week permitted in China including up to 36 overtime hours per month. 64% of Foxconn workers stated that their salary did not cover their basic needs. Over 43% said they had seen or seen incidents such as hand injuries or accidents with factory vehicles.

In September 2012, the Shanghai Daily reported that approximately 200 students from east China's Jiangsu Province were forced to work on Apple's iPhone 5. In view of the approaching release date for the device, Foxconn recorded a shortage of temporary workers, which should be compensated for through a cooperation agreement with the university. The students were paid a monthly wage of 1,550 yuan, the equivalent of 193 euros. They had to work twelve hours a day, six days a week.

Foxconn was also suspected of hiding underage workers from FLA investigations. On October 15, 2012, it was announced that Foxconn had discovered minors among interns at its Yantai facility, China. It is said to have been trainees between the ages of 14 and 16 who were employed on site for three weeks.

In 2013, a woman and two men committed suicide at a Foxconn factory in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou . A few days after the incidents, working conditions in the factory are said to have been relaxed.

In order to reduce the simple, repetitive tasks that are primarily the subject of allegations of poor working conditions, Foxconn replaced and laid off 60,000 of 110,000 workers in a factory in Kunshan in 2016 as part of an automation of production with industrial robots.

Major customers

Current and former major customers at Foxconn:

(The country with the company's headquarters is in brackets.)

Analysts estimate that Apple accounts for around 40% of Foxconn sales in 2012. Hewlett-Packard's share is given as around 25%.

literature

  • Kilian Kirchgessner: Foxconn produces almost every iPhone and is China's largest exporter. What is the giant planning to do in Europe? Das Magazin , Tamedia, Zurich September 16, 2017, pages 22-27.
  • Christoph Neidhart: Silicon Island doesn't want to go under. 80 percent of all laptops are made in Taiwan. Nevertheless, the IT island hardly has any brand names to show. The former pioneers have made themselves comfortable for too long. Now they are looking for new business models. Der Bund , Bern August 22, 2016, pages 25–26.
  • Ralf Ruckus (Ed.): ISlaves. Exploitation and resistance in China's Foxconn factories. Mandelbaum, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-85476-620-9 .

Web links

Commons : Foxconn  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. Annual Report 2017 , page 91
  2. ↑ Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. Revenue and Financial Reports
  3. ↑ Patrick Welter: Foxconn has achieved its goal at Sharp. NZZ online, March 30, 2016
  4. ↑ Dewezet Hameln from April 4, 2016, page 6
  5. ↑ a b Hon Hai Precision on the Forbes Top Multinational Performers List . In: Forbes . ( forbes.com [accessed November 20, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Public Eye Awards 2011 - Foxconn. (PDF) Public Eye, 2011, accessed March 6, 2011 .
  7. ^ Hoover's: Financial information
  8. ↑ Successful start for Media Markt in China , firmenpresse.de, May 21, 2010
  9. ↑ Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots'
  10. ↑ Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. Annual Report 2015 , page 83
  11. ↑ Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. Annual Report 2016 , page 87
  12. ↑ Kilian Kirchgessner: The company, Foxconn produces almost every iPhone and is China's largest exporter. What is the giant planning to do in Europe? Das Magazin, Tamedia, Zurich September 16, 2017, pp. 22–27
  13. ↑ syner.cz: FOXCONN - completion of a plant in Kutna Hora - reconstruction of the northern hall and administrative building (accessed on November 22, 2018)
  14. ↑ radio.cz: Foxconn expands in the Czech Republic , November 19, 2015 (accessed November 22, 2018)
  15. ↑ channelpartner.de: Sony confirms sale of European TV plant to Foxconn , April 1, 2010 (accessed November 22, 2018)
  16. ↑ foxconnslovakia.sk: Facts and Figures (accessed on November 22, 2018)
  17. ↑ Apple supplier Foxconn: "Here command and obedience rule" Spiegel Online , May 10, 2011.
  18. ↑ Production conditions of Apple's iPod in the criticism , Heise.de , June 15, 2006
  19. ↑ Foxconn - 12-hour shifts and no speaking , golem.de , May 26, 2010
  20. ↑ Foxconn relaxes harsh labor rules after suicide specter resurfaces , zdnet.com, May 2, 2013
  21. ^ A b Felix Lee: Scandal over Apple supplier Foxconn: suicide prohibited. In: taz.de . May 26, 2010, accessed June 4, 2010 .
  22. ^ A b Death jumps again at Foxconn ( memento from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) May 29, 2013
  23. ↑ Foxconn: Eleventh suicide at iPhone manufacturer . In: SPIEGEL online. May 27, 2010
  24. ↑ Foxconn increases wages by 30 percent . In: SPIEGEL online. June 2, 2010, accessed June 2, 2010.
  25. ^ After the series of suicides: Foxconn doubles wages
  26. ↑ Foxconn: Higher salaries should stop suicides ( Memento from May 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de , May 28, 2010.
  27. ↑ report sacom October 2010 ( Memento of 20 November 2011 at the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 2.3 MB), time: Apple's successes are cheap bought 5th October 2010
  28. ↑ Foxconn sees thirteenth suicide , DigiTimes , August 6, 2010.
  29. ↑ zdnet.de, accessed June 12, 2010
  30. ↑ Spon: 250 Indian workers have to go to hospital , July 27, 2010
  31. ↑ Foxconn factory actually pretty nice, with swimming pools, says Apple boss Steve Jobs . News.com.au, June 2, 2010
  32. ↑ Foxconn suicide rate is lower than in the US, says Apple's Steve Jobs . Daily Telegraph, June 2, 2010
  33. ^ Gou expresses sorrow ( Memento of November 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Asia One, May 27, 2010
  34. ↑ Crunching the suicide statistics at Foxconn ( Memento from July 28, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). China Economic Review, Jan. 7, 2011
  35. ↑ Foxconn suicide toll mounts . Asia Times, May 22, 2010
  36. ↑ Research report describes Foxconn as “labor camp” , Chamber of Commerce Flandern-China FCCC, October 28, 2010
  37. ↑ Apple Joins Fair Labor Association ( Memento from February 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
  38. ↑ crisis management? Foxconn increases employee wages , Hamburger Abendblatt, February 21, 2012, accessed on February 23, 2012
  39. ↑ Inspection reveals deficiencies at Apple contract manufacturer Foxconn , Heise Online, March 30, 2012, accessed on March 30, 2012
  40. ^ Fair Labor Association - Foxconn Investigation Report March 29, 2012
  41. ↑ Report: Students Need to Assemble iPhone 5 - accessed September 8, 2012
  42. ↑ Students say they are forced to work on new iPhone 5 - accessed September 8, 2012
  43. ↑ Foxconn allegedly hid underage workers from FLA inspections , GIGA, February 23, 2012
  44. ^ Foxconn Says Underage Interns Worked at Yantai in China. bloomberg.com, October 16, 2012, accessed October 17, 2012 .
  45. ^ Report: Again suicides in Foxconn works , Heise online from May 2, 2013
  46. ↑ Apple supplier Foxconn replaces 60,000 employees with robots , report on t3n - News, undated, accessed on May 26, 2016
  47. ↑ Foxconn: Robots replace workers , report on the website of Computer Bild magazine on May 26, 2016, accessed on May 26, 2016
  48. ↑ Rise of the robots: 60,000 workers culled just from just one factory as China's struggling electronics hub turns to artificial intelligence South China Morning Post from 21./22. Retrieved May 26, 2016
  49. ↑ Foxconn Making Acer Android Phones . Phandroid.com. December 22, 2009. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  50. ^ "Kindle Screen Maker Will Increase Capacity To Meet Demand" . Computer World . July 28, 2010
  51. ^ A b "Foxconn Option for Henan's Migrating Millions: A New Factory in Zhengzhou. He Huifeng. South China Morning Post . September 15, 2010, p. 8
  52. ↑ Cisco signs over Mexico manufacturing facility to Foxconn . ZDNet. July 18, 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  53. ^ A b Foxconn by the Numbers . Huffington Post . January 27, 2012
  54. ↑ Huawei: 50 million 5G smartphones ordered from Foxconn. December 2, 2019, accessed May 9, 2020 .
  55. ↑ Buetow, Mike (April 2005). "Foxconn, HP Extend Contract Relationship". Circuits Assembly . Vol. 16, Iss. 4; P. 10, 1 pgs.
  56. ↑ Intel / Foxconn alliance could cripple Asus . The Inquirer. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  57. ↑ ED Kain: Chinese Foxconn Workers Threaten Mass Suicide Over Xbox Pay Dispute . Forbes. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  58. ^ Nintendo to probe Foxconn conditions: report . MarketWatch. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  59. ^ Sony Sources Foxconn to Help Manufacture PS3 . DailyTech. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012. Retrieved on February 1, 2012.
  60. ^ The Dilemma of Cheap Electronics . The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2012.
  61. ^ Budi Putra: Foxconn to make smartphones for Vizio . SlashPhone. October 5, 2006. Archived from the original on January 7, 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  62. ↑ Apple-Foxconn tale goes well beyond Apple, and tech cnet.com, January 27 2012