Foxconn chairman cuts target by 50 percent

Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, announced cutting the long-term growth target for his company by 50 percent as slumps in PCs outweigh Apple sales, Bloomberg reported Monday.

Gou, who founded the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics in 1974, also said the company's annual sales growth target has been reduced to 15 percent from 30 percent, a target set for Foxconn more than a decade ago, the report said.

He thought a 30 percent growth target is too large for a company that has grown so big, according to the report. Foxconn now has almost 1 million workers and generated revenue of $61 billion in 2009.

According to another report by China Business, Foxconn will implement an across-the-board salary raise in October. In Shenzhen, about 85 percent of the workers on the production lines will have their monthly base pay increased to 2,000 yuan, Liu Kun, in charge of Foxconn's media affairs, confirmed.

The salary raise will put bigger pressure on Foxconn, which has already suffered from losses in the first half, the newspaper said.

According to earlier media reports, Foxconn had a net loss of $142.6 million, or 2 cents a share, in the first half of 2009. The company's gross profit rate declined to 2.8 percent, compared with 6.6 percent a year earlier. Sales surged 2.12 percent to $3.23 billion.