Taiwanese tech hardware giant Foxconn on Thursday announced a 19-percent jump in quarterly net profit as the booming market for artificial intelligence servers drives growth, despite geopolitical uncertainty.
Foxconn, whose official name is Hon Hai Precision Industry, has gone beyond assembling low-margin iPhones to making AI servers for Nvidia, along with electric vehicles and robots.
Soaring global demand for generative AI tools is boosting business for Foxconn, even as the war in the Middle East has threatened supply chain volatility.
On Thursday the company said net profit for January-March came to NT$49.9 billion (US$1.6 billion), up from NT$42.1 billion in the same period the previous year.
The figure beat estimates of $48.4 billion in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, AFP reported.
Foxconn said it expects "strong demand for AI servers" to continue this year, forecasting "high double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth" for AI rack shipments in the second quarter.
When the company reported its annual results in March, chairman Young Liu had shrugged off concerns that market volatility caused by global conflict would dent profits.
Taiwanese contract chipmaker TSMC has also said it does not expect geopolitics to impact its supply of key materials such as helium and hydrogen in the near term.
On Wednesday, some of Foxconn's factories in North America suffered a cyberattack, according to a company statement.
"The affected factories are currently resuming normal production," after a response from the cybersecurity team, said the statement dated Wednesday afternoon in Taiwan.
TechCrunch and other media outlets reported that ransomware gang Nitrogen had claimed responsibility for the hack on the dark web.
