Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, is reportedly looking to jump into the nascent IoT market.
Hon Hai’s chairman, Terry Gou, told Taipei Times that the Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is looking to develop IoT technologies and solutions, and also said that the firm will also cooperate with e-commerce giant Alibaba and Japanese company Softbank to build industrial robots. The firm already has 48,000 industrial robotic arms working in its factories, including more than 2,000 “self-developed mechanical arms” at its factory in Kunshan, Suzhou, China.
Hon Hai, which trades as Foxconn Technology and which manufactures Apple’s iPhone and iPad, and Sony’s PlayStation among many other consumer electronics goods, reached an agreement in mid-June with Softbank and Alibaba to invest in Softbank Robotics Holdings Corp.
An initial batch of Pepper robots, developed by Softbank and manufactured by Hon Hai at its Shandong plant in China, sold out in just one minute in the same month.
Gou made his comments prior to attending the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, China last week. The theme of the event was “An Interconnected World Shared and Governed by All — Building a Cyberspace Community of Shared Destiny.”