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Foxconn's 2024 net profit fell short of expectations due to weak consumer electronics sales, the Taiwanese tech giant reported Friday. While demand for its artificial intelligence (AI) servers remained strong, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer is increasingly diversifying into areas like electric vehicles.
The company said full-year net profit rose seven percent to NT$152.7 billion (US$4.6 billion). That compares with an average forecast of NT$159.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. Full-year revenue rose 11 percent to NT$6.9 trillion, beating the market forecast of NT$6.8 trillion.
Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, has been riding a wave of global demand for generative AI in recent years. The company reported a "strong performance" in its AI server business, with revenue up 150 percent, according to documents released ahead of an earnings call with analysts.
The earnings announcement comes as US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs against major trading partners including China, Canada and Mexico, igniting trade wars and causing markets to fall. While Foxconn has plants around the world, the bulk of its operations is based in China, which has been hit by 20 percent levies on products shipped to the United States.
Foxconn is building a mega-AI server plant in Mexico, which a local official told Bloomberg recently would be completed in a year despite Trump's tariff threats. The $900 million assembly plant near Guadalajara will become the world's largest to be powered by Nvidia's GB200 AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus Navarro said. Apple said recently it would team up with Foxconn later this year to begin producing servers that power the cloud components of Apple Intelligence in Houston, Bloomberg reported.
"I think there will be more and more of these projects, and when these projects mature, we will let everyone know," Foxconn chairman Young Liu said in response to a question about the company's plans for further US investment on an online earnings call.
Liu noted that tariffs were "quite a headache" for the chief executives of Foxconn's customers, but he said it was "very, very difficult to predict" how it would unfold.
