By Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Apple Inc supplier Foxconn reported on Wednesday a 10% fall in fourth-quarter net profit from a year earlier, as production at its biggest iPhone factory was disrupted by China’s strict COVID-19 rules.
The world’s largest contract electronics maker forecast revenues for the first quarter and 2023 to be flat, while it estimated revenues for smart consumer electronics to record significant growth for the first three months.
The Taiwanese company said net profit for the October-December quarter fell to T$40 billion ($1.31 billion) from T$44.4 billion in the same period the previous year.
It was in line with an average forecast of T$39.98 billion profit by 13 analysts, according to Refinitiv.
In the fourth quarter, revenue for its key consumer electronics products was flat compared to a year ago, the company said in a statement, without elaborating. The group includes smartphones and makes up more than half of its total revenue.
Production of iPhones faced disruption ahead of Christmas and January’s Lunar New Year holidays, after curbs to control COVID-19 prompted thousands of workers to leave Foxconn’s factory lines at its massive campus in China’s Zhengzhou.
The company said previously production has resumed to normal in Zhengzhou, which produces the majority of Apple’s premium models, including the iPhone 14 Pro.
($1 = 30.5870 Taiwan dollars)
(Reporting by Yimou Lee, Sarah Wu, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Tom Hogue and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
