OEMs, beware: Foxconn is coming for you.
No, not just to buy your components, build your boards and run your logistics. Foxconn is coming for your data, your markets, and your customers.
We’ve been sounding the alarm about this for years. It’s not healthy for your primary supplier to be bigger than the nearly the entire rest of the market. Foxconn, pushing $150 billion in revenues, is as large as the next five EMS/ODMs combined, and more or less as large as numbers 7 through 500.
The 2016 buyout of Sharp could be chalked up to a desire by Foxconn to nab a key technology and supplier to Apple, it’s top customer. The just-announced deal for Belkin, however, coupled with its foray into developing 5G computing and cloud platforms,, suggest a drive to higher margin, branded products. Foxconn’s revenue is larger than almost everyone of its customers, and a new plan to issue $50 billion worth of stock could give it the capital it needs to go on a massive acquisition spree.
OEMs, beware.