TAIPEI (Reuters) -Shares of Apple supplier Foxconn rose as much as 9.5% early on Friday to their highest in three years, a day after it reported a fourth-quarter profit that beat expectations and forecast a bullish outlook for this year due to booming demand for AI servers.
Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, on Thursday reported a bigger-than-expected 33% jump in net profit for the fourth quarter and said it was also looking for a significant rise in revenue this year.
"We view Hon Hai as a major beneficiary of Nvidia’s next-generation AI server products with increasing AI server assemblies/racks orders," analysts at Daiwa Capital Markets wrote in a note after the earnings briefing.
Profits at the world's largest contract electronics maker could rise 13%-25% this year compared to a "flattish" last year, they said.
Shares of Foxconn jumped in early trading, outpacing a 0.5% fall in the broader market.
Foxconn rose as much as 9.5% go touch T$132.50, its highest since March 23, 2021.
(Reporting By Yimou Lee; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Tom Hogue)