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Taiwan Tech Giant Foxconn’s 2024 Profit Misses Forecasts 

The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)
The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)
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Taiwan Tech Giant Foxconn’s 2024 Profit Misses Forecasts 

The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)
The logo of Foxconn is on display during the Smart City Summit & Expo pre-event press conference in Taipei, Taiwan, 11 March 2025. (EPA)

Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn reported on Friday a lower-than-expected net profit for 2024 as consumer electronic gadgets underperformed, although demand for its artificial intelligence servers remained robust.

The world's largest contract electronics manufacturer has been moving beyond assembling devices such as Apple's iPhones into areas ranging from electric vehicles to AI servers.

The company said full-year net profit rose seven percent to NT$152.7 billion (US$4.6 billion).

That compares with an average forecast of NT$159.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.

Full-year revenue rose 11 percent to NT$6.9 trillion, beating the market forecast of NT$6.8 trillion.

Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, has been riding a wave of global demand for generative AI in recent years.

The company reported a "strong performance" in its AI server business, with revenue up 150 percent, according to documents released ahead of an earnings call with analysts.

This year would be the "Year of AI", the company said, with shipments increasing in every quarter.

The earnings announcement comes as US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs against major trading partners including China, Canada and Mexico, igniting trade wars and causing markets to fall.

While Foxconn has plants around the world, the bulk of its operations is based in China, which has been hit by 20 percent levies on products shipped to the United States.

Foxconn is building a mega-AI server plant in Mexico, which a local official told Bloomberg recently would be completed in a year despite Trump's tariff threats.

The $900 million assembly plant near Guadalajara will become the world's largest to be powered by Nvidia's GB200 AI chips, Jalisco Governor Pablo Lemus Navarro said.

Foxconn has also been in the spotlight over potential cooperation with Japanese automaker Nissan after its merger talks with rival Honda fell through in February.

Chairman Young Liu said previously that Foxconn was open to buying French auto giant Renault's stake in Nissan and was looking into a cooperation with Nissan, not a merger.

Foxconn has been looking to expand into the Japanese EV market and Liu said last month the company would announce "good news" in EVs within one or two months.

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Ubisoft Faces Make-Or-Break Moment with ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ 

Visitors stand at the “Assassin's Creed Shadows” video game booth by Ubisoft during the media day at the Gamescom video games trade fair in Cologne, western Germany on August 21, 2024. (AFP)
Visitors stand at the “Assassin's Creed Shadows” video game booth by Ubisoft during the media day at the Gamescom video games trade fair in Cologne, western Germany on August 21, 2024. (AFP)
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Ubisoft Faces Make-Or-Break Moment with ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ 

Visitors stand at the “Assassin's Creed Shadows” video game booth by Ubisoft during the media day at the Gamescom video games trade fair in Cologne, western Germany on August 21, 2024. (AFP)
Visitors stand at the “Assassin's Creed Shadows” video game booth by Ubisoft during the media day at the Gamescom video games trade fair in Cologne, western Germany on August 21, 2024. (AFP)

Ubisoft is banking on the success of "Assassin's Creed Shadows" to fight its way out of financial troubles as the French videogame publisher grapples with falling revenue, a sinking stock price and takeover speculation.

The title, which will be launched on Thursday, marks a return to the company's best-selling franchise after a string of high-profile flops including "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora" and "Star Wars Outlaws" cast doubts on its strategy of licensing new intellectual property to create games.

Ubisoft's stock took a beating last year, falling more than 40% last year and drawing interest from an activist investor. The company's founding Guillemot family, its largest shareholder, has also been exploring talks with Tencent and other investors on a buyout deal that would let them preserve control.

Ubisoft declined to comment on speculation of selling the company's intellectual property.

The launch of the latest game, however, has been marred by criticism on social media including from Elon Musk over its diverse set of characters, as backlash against diversity efforts gains momentum in the US following President Donald Trump's election.

"The release of Assassin's Creed Shadows is a bit of an existential moment for Ubisoft," said Joost Van Dreunen, a lecturer at NYU's Stern School of Business.

"If it does really well, it could go a long way toward repairing its financial position."

After two delays and multiple leaks, the newest entry in the best-selling franchise transports players to feudal Japan, a fan-favorite setting for gamers. It features two protagonists: Naoe, a stealthy female assassin, and Yasuke, a heavily armored African samurai inspired by the real-life eponymous figure.

Ubisoft has refined the series' core mechanics of parkour and stealth to enhance the dual-character system. "They're not trying to reinvent the wheel, but they really hope that what they tried with the previous games still works right now," said Jordan Van Andel, who has played the game and whose YouTube channel JorRaptor has over 1 million subscribers.

Van Andel, whose content has in the past been sponsored by Ubisoft, said the game offered a more polished experience than recent titles in the franchise but its story was disappointing.

He added that the game needs to attract a player base beyond core fans to match the financial success of "Assassin's Creed Valhalla," the last big release in the series that came out in 2020 and the first game in the franchise to make over $1 billion in revenue.

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Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes the current US political climate could also pose challenges to the game, saying that Trump "has made it okay to be anti-DEI."

Since its reveal more than two years ago, "Assassin's Creed Shadows" has faced criticism from groups over its creative choices such as having a black samurai and a female assassin.

"We could argue that the people that voted for him (Trump)... they would have hated the game anyway, but I think that they would have been less vocal," Pachter said.

North America accounted for over 53% of Ubisoft's total videogame bookings in its fiscal year 2024, as many of the company's franchises such as "Far Cry" have a broad appeal to the American audience.

Van Dreunen believes the controversy could work in Ubisoft's favor. "It's free press this only makes the game more interesting to a lot of players, I'm sure," he said.