Taipei: Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., renowned worldwide as Foxconn, reported an unprecedented third-quarter net profit of NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion), spurred by surging demand for artificial intelligence servers.

According to Focus Taiwan, the Taiwan-based manufacturing giant’s financial results represented a 17 percent increase from the previous year and a 30 percent rise compared to the preceding quarter. The earnings per share for the third quarter were NT$4.15, up from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter.

Hon Hai disclosed that its consolidated sales for the latest quarter rose by 11 percent year-on-year and 14.47 percent from the previous quarter, reaching a record NT$2.06 billion. The company’s cloud and networking division experienced significant growth, accounting for 42 percent of total third-quarter sales compared to 41 percent in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the smart consumer electronics division increased its share to 37 percent from 35 percent a quarter earlier.

The computing division’s contribution to total third-quarter sales decreased to about 15 percent, down from 18 percent in the second quarter, while the electronics component operations remained steady at 6 percent. Hon Hai’s gross margin reached 6.35 percent in the third quarter, the highest in five quarters, and its operating margin rose to 3.43 percent, marking the highest level since the first quarter of 2019.

Furthermore, the company’s net margin stood at 2.8 percent in the third quarter, up from 2.66 percent the previous year and 2.47 percent in the second quarter. Over the first nine months of the year, Hon Hai generated approximately NT$5.50 trillion in consolidated sales, with AI servers contributing NT$1 trillion.