Foxconn sees sales drop 19 percent in first quarter
Taiwan company draws 60 percent to 70 percent of its revenue from assembling iPhones and iPads and working on other Apple products.
Foxconn, the manufacturing company best known for producing iPhones and iPads, saw sales drop considerably during the first quarter.
According to Reuters, which obtained a copy of the company's financials during the three-month period ending March, Foxconn saw its sales drop 19 percent to 808.9 billion Taiwan new dollars ($26.9 billion). During the same period last year, Foxconn's revenue hit 1 trillion Taiwan new dollars.
The bad news for Foxconn didn't stop there. The company said that its second-quarter revenue would be relatively flat compared to the prior period, and it might have trouble maintaining its profit during the first half of the year.
Foxconn didn't single out a specific cause for its woes, but the company noted that the vast majority of its revenue -- between 60 percent and 70 percent -- comes from its partnership with Apple.
Apple's iPhone has come under fire from analysts and other prognosticators in the technology industry who were somewhat critical over the company's nearly 48 million unit sales during the fourth quarter. Some analysts believed Apple would sell millions more than it did.
That news came just weeks after Leap Wireless said that prepaid iPhone sales were only half of what the carrier had forecast. Earlier this week, analysts said that Apple likely sold an average of 36.9 million iPhones in its second quarter, but few of them expected a blockbuster quarter for the company.
That, of course, is bad news for Foxconn. The company is extremely reliant upon Apple and its iPhone to be successful.
The good news for Foxconn, however, is that Apple's next-generation iPhone is rumored to launch in the coming months. That should help the manufacturer keep its revenue afloat.