Taiwan’s Foxconn said on Wednesday it has partnered with chipmaker NXP Semiconductors to develop platforms for electric vehicles, adding to a string of such deals by the iPhone assembler as it moves into the auto market. Foxconn, best known for assembling Apple’s iPhone, has expanded into areas including electric vehicles (EVs) and semiconductors in recent years, announcing deals with U.S. startup Fisker Inc and Indian conglomerate Vedanta Ltd. In a statement, Foxconn said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with NXP to develop platforms for EVs, calling it a “prime oppor tunity” a boost to its ability to quickly build EV products and reduce costs.
The Taiwan-based company said it plans to build more than 10 automative products with NXP and they will soon be in development, including next-generation EV platforms using NXP’s processors.
Foxconn aims to provide components or services to 10 percent of the world’s EVs by 2025 to 2027, Chairman Liu Young-way has said, vowing to lower manufacturing costs for carmaking with its assembly know-how as the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer.
The Taiwan company has been seeking to acquire chip plants globally amid a worldwide chip shortage. It said last week it has become a shareholder in embattled Chinese chip conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup via a $798 million (roughly Rs. 6,400 crore) investment by a subsidiary.
Earlier this month, Foxconn raised its full-year business outlook, thanks to strong sales of smartphones and servers despite concerns of slowing demand due to rising inflation.
Like other global manufacturers, the Taiwanese firm has grappled with a severe shortage of chips, which has hurt smartphone production including for its major client Apple, partly due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China.
But the company said in a statement late that June sales jumped 31 percent from a year earlier to a record high for the month, thanks to appropriate supply chain management and rising sales of consumer electronics. Smartphones make up the bulk of its revenue.
© Thomson Reuters 2022