Foxconn looks to AI after maker of Apple and Amazon products celebrates 30 years in China
With 1 million employees and half a dozen factories contributing 4 per cent of the country’s export value, Foxconn’s expansion symbolises China’s role as tech manufacturing powerhouse
Billionaire Terry Gou threw a party for more than 100 of his employees last week and sang happy birthday for them. They were all born on June 6, 1988 – the same day Foxconn Technology Group established its first factory in mainland China, one of the first international investors to do so.
The workers number among Gou’s one million employees in China – the largest private sector workforce in the country. Over the past three decades the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturing giant has opened half a dozen factories in China that make products like personal computers and smartphones for brands including Apple and Hewlett Packard.
Foxconn’s net foreign exchange reserves in mainland China over the past 30 years now add up to US$237.4 billion, representing 7.6 per cent of the country’s total, and the company accounts for nearly 4 per cent of China’s annual export value.
“The success of the opening up of China to foreign investment is very much the success of Foxconn in China,” Gou said in Shenzhen on Wednesday.
Singing happy birthday to workers was a far cry from the crisis Gou faced 8 years ago after 11 employees committed suicide by jumping from buildings at the company’s Shenzhen complex. Foxconn was criticised by labour activists at the time, who accused the company of offering low wages and letting employees work illegal overtime.