Taiwan-based contract manufacturer Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd.) has been having a breakout year on the back of increased orders from Xiaomi and Asus, amidst reports of improved shipments to emerging markets like India and Brazil. The company has already set up manufacturing facilities and established comprehensive supply chains in the two high-growth emerging economies, and has started churning out locally-made handsets for Xiaomi Technology and Asustek Computers in both the countries. Xiaomi has already started selling locally-manufactured Redmi 2 smartphones in Brazil while the recently launched Redmi 2 Prime in India is manufactured at Vishakhapatnam in the Southern state of Andhra Pradesh. With things going swimmingly for Foxconn, the company is also reportedly in advanced stages of negotiations with a number of other smartphone vendors, and expects to get significant orders from some of them soon.
According to reports, Asustek CEO Mr. Jerry Shen has revealed that Foxconn’s Brazilian factories are making all of Asus’ ZenFone series smartphones which are being sold in the country. He also claimed that sales of the company’s ZenFone 2 models in Brazil have been higher than expected, leading Asus to revise its target upwards to around 1 million devices for the calendar year 2015. As for India, Asus aims much higher, and expects to sell as many as three million ZenFone models in the country this year, many of them locally made. Some of the ZenFone models currently sold in the country are reportedly already being manufactured locally, while the rest are being manufactured in China. Presently, the Foxconn facility in India is churning out 200,000 ZenFone handsets a month, most of which reportedly come with Qualcomm processors, indicating that ZenFone 2 Laser-series devices are currently under production in India, while the original ZenFone 2 devices with Intel chips, continue to be made in China. The report meanwhile, also says that ZenFone models with MediaTek chips will also start rolling out of the Foxconn facilities in the country, probably meaning that the upcoming ZenFone Go will also be made in India by Foxconn Electronics.
Overall, Asus is shaping up as a brand to reckon with in the world of smartphones, having already shipped over eight million handsets in the first half of this year alone, including five million in Q2, 2015, compared to only 1.2 million shipped in the same period last year, when the company had just started the global rollout of its first generation ZenFones. The company expects to have an even better time in the rest of the year, with most of the festivals in key markets falling in the second half of the year. Which includes the Chinese New Year and Singles’ Day in China, Diwali and Durga Puja in India and Christmas in Brazil. In view of all that, the company has reportedly set itself a fairly ambitious target of shipping six million ZenFones in Q3 and 17-25 million smartphones overall in the whole year.