3D printing is just a gimmick not a game changer: Terry Gou, chairman and founder of Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer

June 28, 2013 Leave a comment

3D printing is just a gimmick not a game changer: Terry Gou

Staff Reporter

Terry Gou, chairman and founder of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry — the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer better known by its trading name Foxconn — said that 3D printing is a gimmick with no commercial value and it is not a game changer, reports our sister paper Want Daily.

Gou said 3D printing does not equate to the third industrial revolution and he would be beyond surprised if 3D technology did lead to a revolution. The tycoon made his dismissive remarks ahead of his firm’s annual general meeting on Wednesday.3D technology has existed for sometimes but since it is incapable of mass production, it has no commercial value, Guo said, adding that the technology can only be described as a gimmick as it cannot be used to produce electronic parts.

Regarding Hon Hai’s current negotiations with the Japanese electronics giant Sharp, Gou said it is on going and the firm has a long way to go until the deadline of their talks in March 26, 2015. Hon Hai seeks to become the Japanese firm’s largest shareholder by buying a 9.9% share in the company and gain a degree of management control. However, talks between the two sides have recently stalled following a capital cooperation agreement signed on March 26 last year due to instability within the Japanese electronics maker, which has seen four new senior managers including its president in the past year.

Gou said he has maintained a good relationship with Kozo Takahashi, the new Sharp president, and they will continue negotiations to seek the most appropriate arrangement for the share-buying deal.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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