Taiwan’s Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, beat expectations to post its highest-ever revenue for the Q3 on strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Foxconn is building the world’s largest manufacturing facility making the Nvidia GB200 chip to help meet “awfully huge” demand for the AI darling’s Blackwell platform, a senior executive at the Taiwanese company said on Tuesday.
Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and known as Apple’s biggest iPhone assembler, has been benefiting from the AI boom given it also makes servers.
Foxconn’s revenue
Revenue for Foxconn, Apple’s biggest iPhone assembler jumped 20.2% year on year to T$1.85 trillion ($57.3 billion).
“The result exceeded the company’s original expectations of significant growth,” Foxconn said in a statement on Saturday.
It was also ahead of a T$1.79 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate, which gives greater weight to forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.
Foxconn’s largest Nvidia AI manufacturing factory
Benjamin Ting, Foxconn senior vice president for the cloud enterprise solutions business group, said the partnership between his company and Nvidia was very important.
“We’re building the largest GB200 production facility on the planet – I don’t think I can say where now,” Ting said at the company’s annual tech day in Taipei.
Foxconn’s AI investment with Nvidia
He said everyone was asking for Nvidia’s Blackwell platform.
“The demand is awfully huge,” Ting said, standing next to Nvidia’s vice president for AI and robotics, Deepu Talla.
Foxconn’s Chairman Young Liu said at the event the company’s supply chain was ready for the AI revolution.
Foxconn’s manufacturing capabilities include the “advanced liquid cooling and heat dissipation technologies necessary to complement the GB200 server’s infrastructure,” Liu said.
Foxconn server demand
Strong AI server demand led to robust revenue growth for its cloud and networking products division, said Foxconn whose customers include AI chip firm Nvidia.
The Q3 is traditionally when Taiwan’s tech companies start racing to supply smartphones, tablets and other electronics to major vendors such as Apple for Western markets’ year-end holiday period.
Total revenue in September alone reached T$733 billion, up 10.9% year on year and the second-highest ever level for the month.
“Entering the peak season in the second half of the year, we anticipate our operation to gradually gain momentum,” Foxconn said of its outlook for the current quarter.
“The fourth quarter is expected to be roughly in line with current market expectations,” it added, without elaborating.
The company does not provide numerical forecasts.
Flat consumer electronics market
For smart consumer electronics, which includes iPhones, there was a strong quarter-on-quarter growth thanks to new product launches, but its year-on-year performance was flat.
Foxconn’s stock update
Foxconn’s shares have jumped 86% so far this year, outperforming by far a 24% rise for the broader Taiwan market. Foxconn stock closed up 3.7% on Friday ahead of the revenue data release, bucking a 0.4% fall on the benchmark index.
Foxconn will report its Q3 earnings on November 14.
