Taipei: Taiwan-based manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. reported its highest-ever net profit for the second quarter on Wednesday, with cloud and networking devices accounting for more than 50 percent of its revenue during the current AI boom.

According to Focus Taiwan, iPhone assembler and AI server maker Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn globally, stated it posted NT$59.97 billion (US$1.86 billion) in net profit during the April-June period, marking a 35 percent increase from a year earlier and a 20 percent rise from the previous quarter.

Hon Hai's earnings per share for the second quarter reached NT$4.27, compared to NT$3.19 a year earlier and NT$3.56 in the first quarter. In terms of sales, Hon Hai generated NT$2.53 trillion in consolidated sales, reflecting a 41 percent year-on-year increase and a 19 percent quarter-on-quarter rise.

The company disclosed that the cloud and networking division accounted for 51 percent of its second-quarter total revenue, up from 48 percent in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the smart consumer electronics division contributed 29 percent of total sales in the April-June period, with the computing and electronic components divisions representing 15 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

As the world's largest contract electronics maker, Hon Hai reported its gross margin at 6.12 percent in the second quarter, a slight decrease of 0.21 percentage points from the previous year and a 0.06 percentage point drop from the last quarter. The company's operating margin improved to 3.75 percent, rising by 0.60 percentage points from the previous year and 0.18 percentage points from the prior quarter.

Hon Hai's net margin stood at 2.37 percent in the second quarter, reflecting a 0.10 percentage point decline from a year earlier but a 0.01 percentage point increase from the previous quarter. The company attributed its improved operations on both a year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis to a stronger product portfolio, bolstered by AI servers and AI racks, amid growing AI infrastructure investments.

For the first half of this year, Hon Hai's net profit reached NT$109.89 billion, up 27 percent from the previous year, with earnings per share at NT$7.84. Hon Hai also reported a 35 percent rise in consolidated sales for the January-June period, amounting to NT$4.65 trillion.