It’s not just iPhone fans who are anxiously waiting for the iPhone 8 to arrive, an iPhone version that will be unlike anything Apple created so far. Apple suppliers that live and die by Apple’s orders are also going to profit from the iPhone 8’s popularity, including Apple’s primary iPhone assembler, a Taiwan-based company you may have heard of: Hon Hai or Foxconn.
A report in Bloomberg over the weekend said that Foxconn is riding the wave of “iPhone 8 expectations.”
Foxconn shares gained 29% last year, with optimism about Apple’s 10th anniversary iPhone helping the company reach a decade-high.
The Taiwanese company is expected to mass-produce the OLED iPhone 8 later this year, and an exclusivity deal will surely prop up the stock.
Bloomberg says Apple could sell 20 million to 23 million iPhones in China alone during the December 2017 quarter, according to estimates from Counterpoint Research, or 20% more than last year.
Apple accounts for half of Foxconn’s revenue, the report notes, and is seen as having played a “pivotal” role in the stock’s recent buoyancy. Even though the iPhone doesn’t see the same kind of growth it used to enjoy, the iPhone 7 still delivered better than expected results last quarter. And the more iPhone Apple sells, the better it is for Foxconn.
Foxconn, meanwhile, isn’t necessarily happy to be just a supplier for Apple. The company is heavily investing in other areas, including robotics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the revival of Sharp. All that happens without directly competing with its main client.
On top of that, Foxconn’s which obtained control of Sharp last year, will invest almost $9 million in an LCD factory that will make LCD displays by 2019 and nearly $2 billion into an OLED display factory which could provide screens for future iPhone models. Foxconn and Sharp are even considering building a screen facility in the US worth around $7 billion.
In other words, some of the iPhone money Foxconn receives every quarter will be used to drive innovation in various other tech fields, as Foxconn looks for other growth opportunities. And the iPhone 8, which is already expected to drive Apple’s next super-cycle, will be partly responsible for whatever comes out from Foxconn in the following years.
