Foxconn third-quarter revenue hits record, misses market forecast

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, reported record third-quarter revenue on strong demand for artificial intelligence products, though it missed the market forecast and offered caution about exchange rates. Revenue for Nvidia's biggest server maker and Apple's top iPhone assembler jumped 11% from the same quarter last year to T$2.057 trillion ($67.71 billion), Foxconn said in a statement on Sunday. While that was below the T$2.134 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate, which gives greater weight to forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate, Foxconn said the result was better than expected. On a U.S. dollar basis, Foxconn said third quarter revenue rose 16.1% on year. The Taiwan dollar has strengthened some 8% so far this year against the greenback. Strong AI demand led to robust revenue growth for its cloud and networking products division. Smart consumer electronics, which includes iPhones, posted a slight revenue decline, affected by exchange rates, the company said. September revenue rose 14.2% on year to T$837.1 billion, a record for that month. Operations are expected to "maintain sequential quarterly growth as AI server shipments continue to ramp up in the fourth quarter" and due to the traditional peak season ahead of year-end holidays in major Western markets, the company said. "However, the impact of the global political and economic situation and exchange rate fluctuations will need continued close monitoring," it added, without elaborating. Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry, does not provide numerical forecasts. It will report third quarter earnings on November 12. Foxconn's shares have risen 23% this year, outperforming the 16% rise for the Taiwan market. The stock closed up 0.44% on Friday ahead of the revenue data release, compared with a 1.45% gain for the benchmark index. ($1 = 30.3800 Taiwan dollars) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by William Mallard)

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