As the world's largest gadget maker, Foxconn's revenue of US$60.8 billion last year nearly equalled the combined sales of its top nine competitors in the world.
Its titanic force of 900,000 mainland workers helps forge Foxconn's dominance in the industry of contract electronics, but a spate of suicides has called into question the company's reliance on cheap labour.
The massive workforce under military-style management at Foxconn reflects the country's struggle to evolve from 'early capitalism' marked by labour-intensive growth, said Hu Xingdou , a professor of economics at Beijing Institute of Technology.
'Foxconn's management style led to its business success, but the spate of suicides also shows such management is a failure,' Hu said.
The company's evolution from humble start-up to the world's largest contract electronics maker is a tale with twin narratives - a story of meteoric growth and outsized influence in China, and in recent years, a harsh portrait of factory life.
Terry Gou founded Foxconn in 1974 in Taiwan with a few thousand dollars (either US$3,000 or US$7,500, depending on divergent company reports) and a belief 'that the electronics products would be an integral part of everyday life in every office and in every home'. And Foxconn became the company that offered capacity and price to lure the world's top companies, including Apple, Dell, HP and Sony.
Foxconn seized on China's move into the global economy, becoming the country's largest exporter and the unequivocal worldwide leader in electronics manufacturing. Until 2008, the firm's double-digit expansions drove growth in the industry, dubbed the 'Foxconn effect' by analysts.
