Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer, is considering the sale of its new $8.8 billion display panel factory in China, according to a Friday-published Reuters report citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Foxconn supplies components to electronics manufacturers including Apple, BlackBerry, Dell, Google, Huawei, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Sony, and Toshiba. It is looking for a buyer for its aforementioned liquid crystal display (LCD) factory in Guangzhou, China, according to Reuters.
“It would mark one of its largest divestments from China,” assessed Reuters of Foxconn’s possible sale of its Chinese LCD factory, linking the development to “the protracted trade war between Washington and Beijing.”
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would implement a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion of imports from China previously exempted from his latest import duties.
Reuters attributes Foxconn’s contemplations to Trump’s trade policies toward China:
The trade war has disrupted technology global supply chains in a major way, forcing Foxconn to review its own. That and slowing demand for large-screen televisions and monitors had prompted Foxconn’s management to seek a buyer for the LCD plant, one of the sources familiar with the management’s thinking said.
Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp — which makes sensors, camera modules and screens for Apple’s iPhones — ended plans to build a display-manufacturing factory in China, opting instead to locate in Vietnam, according to a Friday report from Nikkei Asian Review:
Sharp said Thursday it has scrapped plans to produce displays for the American market in China and will instead build a new plant in Vietnam in order to avoid new tariffs being imposed in the long-simmering trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.
On Thursday, Sharp announced a nearly 60 percent reduction in profits in its quarterly earnings report compared to the same time period a year prior.
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