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46 PCB007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2023 Hewlett-Packard's Application Center in Tai- wan. Gou eventually became chairman and CEO of Foxconn. I didn't hear a lot about Hon Hai, the com- pany that would become Foxconn, until 2008, when I got a phone call from my old HP boss at HP-Taiwan, who had just become the executive vice president of Hon Hai and needed some help in China. From then on, I would learn a lot about Foxconn and Terry Gou. How Did Foxconn Start? Foxconn started in the 1970s by making plas- tic items for TVs. In the 1980s, when the IBM PC started growing, Foxconn pivoted to mak- ing connectors and cables for PCs. is turned out to be a smart move; as the volume grew, so did the gross margin—to over 36%. As it diversified its manufacturing portfolio, Foxconn became even nimbler and more adept in positioning itself as a leader in whatever it does. us, in 2020 when the company entered the EV market, its worldwide sales quickly jumped to $240 billion. Unlike traditional car builders, Foxconn believes that simple EVs can be built like PCs, as modular elements; to explore that possi- bility, the company formed the MIH Consor- tium, which now has over 2,376 members in 64 countries. rough the MIH Consortium, Foxconn will supply startup EV companies with referenced EV designs and all the neces- sary components to make a new EV (battery, motors, electronics, displays, wiring, soware, IC chips, and the body) with full assembly available as an additional service. A real "PC on wheels," all at high margins for Foxconn. Foxconn as an ODM From my vantage point, Foxconn doesn't hesitate to spend money. It is "vertically ori- ented" and will develop or build as many com- ponent parts for electronics products as it can, including video displays, power supplies, plas- tic molding machines and cast metal parts, PCBs, flex, connectors, RF/networking, ear- phones, cameras, etc. Foxconn is the owner of the two largest PCB/flex fabricators in the world: Zhen Ding Technology (valued at over $5 billion) and FIH Mobile Limited (100% cap- tive but over $4 billion in sales) 3-4 . Expect these two to dominate electronics component pro- duction in their EVs, with EV sales projected to total over 40 million vehicles by 2030. Now, that's a lot of electronics (Figure 2). Figure 2: Projected annual global light-duty vehicle sales from 2015 to 2040 5 .