Foxconn Clears Independent IPO of Its Industrial Internet Business
Dou Shicong
DATE:  Jan 31 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Foxconn Clears Independent IPO of Its Industrial Internet Business Foxconn Clears Independent IPO of Its Industrial Internet Business

(Yicai Global) Jan. 31 -- Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (Foxconn), a Taiwan-based electronic manufacturing giant, has approved the proposal for the independent initial public offering of its Industrial Internet business and plans to set up artificial intelligence laboratories in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Shenzhen.

Foxconn held its general shareholders' meeting today, where Terry Gou, its chairman, said the company's Industrial Internet will become the world's largest. The IPO take will go to build the AI labs, reconstruct existing production lines, and buy new equipment. Its future business will concentrate on network communication services and cloud computing, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The listing plan may also include Foxconn's core business sector, the iPhone manufacturing division, Nikkei reported Jan. 23. Foxconn became a vendor of Apple Inc. in 2000 and is now one of the world's largest contracted plants.

Though Foxconn is often seen as a mere feeder factory for the smartphone colossus, Gou hopes that Foxconn can transform itself from a hardware company into a software firm, he told the general meeting.

Foxconn issued the Foxconn Industrial Internet Co. IPO proposal last month, with the Shanghai Stock Exchange as its venue, but gave no specific timetable for the listing. Foxconn will hold onto 85 percent of the company's shares post-IPO.

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Keywords:   FOXCONN,IPO,Industrial Internet,Apple,IPHONE