Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Foxconn Technology Group, is a Taiwanese
multinational electronics contract manufacturing company headquartered in Tucheng, New Taipei,
Taiwan. It is the world's largest electronics contracter manufacturer, and the third-largest
information technology company by revenue. Foxconn is primarily an original design manufacturer
and its clients include major American, European, and Japanese electronics and information technology
companies. Notable products that the company manufactures include the BlackBerry, iPad,
iPhone, Kindle, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U.
Foxconn has been involved in several controversies relating to how it manages employees in China,
where it is the largest private employer.
History
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. was founded in 1974 by Terry Guo as a manufacturer of
electrical components. Foxconn was originally a trade name of Hon Hai and a subsidiary later
received the name. Hon Hai's first manufacturing plant in mainland China opened in Longhua,
Shenzhen, in 1988. In 2001 Intel concentrated on its core competency
of chip making and began using Chinese contract manufacturers such as Foxconn to make Intel-branded
motherboards. In November 2007 Foxconn announced plans to
build a new US$500 million plant in Huizhou, Southern China.
In March 2012 Foxconn agreed to acquire a 10 percent stake in the Japanese electronics
company Sharp Corporation for US$806 million and to purchase up to 50 percent of the LCD
displays produced at Sharp's plant in Sakai, Japan.
In January 2012 Foxconn named Tien Chong Cheng chief executive, who soon resigned, citing
health problems. In September 2012 Foxconn announced plans
to invest US$494 million in the construction of five new factories in Itu, Brazil, creating
10,000 jobs. The company paid $312 million in 2014 for
two 4G licenses in the lower 700 MHz and 900 MHz bands in Taiwan's Telco spectrum
auction. In May 2014 Foxconn announced it was expanding its involvement in Taiwan's
nascent 4G telecommunications market further by merging with Taiwan's fourth-largest mobile
operator Asia Pacific Telecom. The deal was set to close on 20 June 2014.
Operations Foxconn has factories in Asia, Europe, Mexico
and South America that together assemble around 40 percent of all consumer electronics products
sold. China
Foxconn has 13 factories in nine Chinese cities—more than in any other country.
Foxconn's largest factory worldwide is in Longhua, Shenzhen, where hundreds of thousands
of workers are employed at the Longhua Science & Technology Park, a walled campus sometimes
referred to as “Foxconn City”. Covering about 1.16 square miles, it includes 15 factories,
worker dormitories, a swimming pool, a fire brigade, its own television network, and a
city centre with a grocery store, bank, restaurants, bookstore, and hospital. While some workers
live in surrounding towns and villages, others live and work inside the complex; a quarter
of the employees live in the dormitories, and many of them work up to 12 hours a day
for 6 days each week. Another of Foxconn's factory "cities" is Zhengzhou Technology Park
in Zhengzhou, Henan province, where it is reported 120,000 employees work.
Foxconn continues to expand, and planned factories include sites at Chengdu in Sichuan province
and Wuhan in Hubei province. Brazil
All company facilities in South America are located in Brazil, and these include mobile
phone factories in Manaus and Indaiatuba as well as production bases in Jundiai, Sorocaba,
and Santa Rita do Sapucaí. The company is considering more investments in Brazil.
Europe
Foxconn has factories in Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. It is the second-largest
exporter in the Czech Republic. India
Foxconn has operational units in the Special Economic Zone of Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Japan Foxconn and Sharp Corporation jointly run
two plants manufacturing large-screen televisions in Sakai, Osaka. In August 2012 it was reported
that Sharp, while doing corporate restructuring and downsizing, was considering selling the
plants to Foxconn, which was believed to be receptive to the plan.
Malaysia As of 2011, Foxconn had at least seven factories
in Johor state, possibly at Kulaijaya, where it is developing an industrial park that will
include four factories once completed. Mexico
Foxconn has a facility in San Jerónimo, Chihuahua that assembles computers, and two facilities
in Juárez – a former Motorola production base that manufactures mobile phones, and
a set-top box factory acquired from Cisco Systems. LCD televisions are also made in
the country by Foxconn in a plant acquired from Sony.
South Korea The company invested $377 million in June
2014 to pick up a 4.9% shareholding in South Korean IT services provider SK CandC.
United States In December 2013, Foxconn announced plans
to invest $30 million over two years to build a manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania,
as well as putting $10 million into R&D at Carnegie Mellon University. The new facility
will be located in Harrisburg and will develop robotic equipment.
Major customers Major customers of Foxconn include or have
included:
(country of headquarters in parentheses) Apple has stated that it contracts with Chinese
original equipment manufacturers such as Foxconn because they have easy access to the Chinese
supply chain within a well developed industrial cluster.
Controversies Foxconn has been involved in several controversies
all relating to employee grievances or treatment. Foxconn has more than a million employees.
In China, it employs more people than any other private company as of 2011.
Working conditions Allegations of poor working conditions have
been made on several occasions. News reports highlight the long working hours, discrimination
against mainland Chinese workers by their Taiwanese co-workers, and lack of working
relationships at the company. Although Foxconn was found to be compliant in the majority
of areas when Apple Inc. audited the maker of its iPods and iPhones in 2007 the audit
did substantiate a few of the allegations. Concerns increased in early 2012 due to a
US theatrical monologue purportedly based on factual accounts of working conditions
at Foxconn, but a portion of the source material was later found to be fictional. However,
a 2012 audit performed by the Fair Labor Association at the request of Apple Inc. found that workers
routinely received insufficient overtime pay and suggested that workplace accidents may
be common. A Hong Kong non-profit organisation, Students
and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, has written numerous negative reports on Foxconn's
treatment of its employees. These typically find far worse conditions than the 2012 Fair
Labor Association audit did but rely on a far smaller number of employee informants–100
to 170. The Fair Labor Association audit in 2012 used interviews with 35,000 Foxconn employees.
In September 2012 a fight at worker dormitories in Taiyuan, Shanxi, escalated into a riot
involving 2000 people and was quelled by security. In October 2012, the company admitted that
14-year-old children had worked for a short time at a facility in Yantai, Shandong Province.
Foxconn said that the workers involved were part of an internship program. Individuals
as young as 16 can legally work in China. Also in October 2012 a young worker, Zhang
Tingzhen, was threatened to have Hon-Hal medical support canceled, when doctors remonstrated
against moving his injured body for treatment in Huizhou from the hospital in Shenzhen.
He suffered an electrical shock and was injured to the extent that doctors needed to amputate
half of his brain. This left him in no condition to travel to Huizhou, the city he was initially
hired at. The company stated that it was acting within labor laws.
Suicides
Suicides among Foxconn workers have attracted media attention. One was the high-profile
death of a worker after the loss of a prototype and the other, a series of suicides linked
to low pay in 2010. Suicides of Foxconn workers continued into 2012, with one in June 2012.
The rate has substantially fallen since 2010. Sun Danyong, a 25-year-old man, committed
suicide in July 2009 after reporting the loss of an iPhone 4 prototype in his possession.
In reaction to a spate of worker suicides in which 14 people died in 2010, a report
from 20 Chinese universities described Foxconn factories as labor camps and detailed widespread
worker abuse and illegal overtime. In response to the suicides, Foxconn installed suicide-prevention
netting at some facilities, and it promised to offer substantially higher wages at its
Shenzhen production bases. Workers were also forced to sign a legally binding document
guaranteeing they and their descendants would not sue the company as a result of unexpected
death, self-injury or suicide. Against this, the suicide rate at Foxconn,
even during the suicide spate, was lower than that of China as well as that of all 50 states
of the United States. See also
2010 Chinese labour unrest List of companies of Taiwan
List of electronics companies
References
Further reading Barboza, David, "Foxconn Plans to Lift Pay
Sharply at Factories in China", The New York Times, February 18, 2012
Duhigg, Charles; Barboza, David, "Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad", The New York Times,
January 25, 2012 Kristof, Nicholas D.; WuDunn, Sheryl, "Two
Cheers for Sweatshops", The New York Times, September 24, 2000
Weir, Bill, "iFactory: Inside Apple", ABC Nightline, TV program, February 21, 2012
External links foxconn.com
FOXCONN: Channel Business