Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou's Hon Hai lifts October sales 46% to $39.7 billion on Nvidia AI server demand

Hon Hai Precision Industry, the Taiwanese electronics company founded by billionaire Terry Gou, reported a 46% jump in October sales on strong demand for the Nvidia servers at the center of a global artificial intelligence build-out.

Revenue rose to NT$1.31 trillion ($39.7 billion) last month, Hon Hai said in a statement. Analysts on average had expected sales growth of about 30% over the three months ending December, Bloomberg reported.

Cloud computing and networking were the main drivers of the increase, fueled by demand for AI servers, according to ChainCatcher. Analysts expect Hon Hai to keep its strong growth momentum in the fourth quarter.

The October figure is also higher than September's NT$1.15 trillion. That was the first month in which Hon Hai's consolidated sales went above NT$1 trillion, Focus Taiwan reported in October. September revenue rose 38.42% from a year earlier and 25.70% from August, while the previous September high was NT$837.1 billion in 2025.

At the time, the company said its results were "largely based on the performance of its cloud and networking division during the current AI era." Cloud and networking, electronic components and computing products all improved from a year earlier, while smart consumer electronics was roughly flat as rising product prices weighed on shipments.

Meanwhile, analysts told Focus Taiwan that Hon Hai was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the launch of Apple's iPhone 18 series in September, which lifted its smart electronics sales from August.

The gains have built up over several months. Hon Hai's third-quarter revenue reached a record NT$3.03 trillion, up 47.12% from a year earlier and 20.44% from the previous quarter. In the first nine months of 2026, sales rose 39.53% to NT$7.67 trillion.

Hon Hai holds more than 40% of the global AI server market, according to Focus Taiwan. In addition, rotating Chief Executive Officer Michael Chiang said at an investor conference in mid-August that the company expected its AI rack shipments in 2026 to more than double from 2025.

When it reported September sales, Hon Hai said the AI boom and the traditional peak season for information and communications technology should support fourth-quarter results. However, it also told investors to watch a fast-changing political and economic landscape that could affect demand.

Gou founded Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, and stepped down as chairman in 2019 after 45 years, according to Forbes. He remains a director of the company and holds a stake in it, though Forbes does not disclose its size.

Forbes puts Gou's real-time net worth at $14.1 billion, up $480 million from the previous trading day. That makes him the 209th-richest person in the world, and he ranks fourth on Forbes' 2026 list of Taiwan's 50 richest people.