郭台銘越是心急: 中國工資水平不斷上漲: 幾乎為毛利潤的兩倍

a pop, ill-fated

Losing $207 a Pop, H-P Revives iPad Rival H-P said it will temporarily resume manufacturing of its ill-fated TouchPad tablet just 11 days after killing its iPad rival as part of a sweeping corporate overhaul.






2011年08月31日 12:43 PM Lex專欄：富士康漲工資 Lex_Hon Hai / Foxconn: wage slaves 英國《金融時報》 Lex專欄
Executives at Foxconn International Holdings, the contract handset manufacturer, like to talk about keeping pace with “industry game-changing movements”. That is to be expected: customers from Espoo to Cupertino are in a state of flux. But the reality is that the more significant developments are unfolding right on the doorstep of the Hong Kong-listed company, headquartered in Shenzhen. Six-month figures published late on Monday showed costs per employee up by exactly one-third, year-on-year, to just under US $2,900. The total staff bill was $272m: almost double gross profit.
手機合同製造商富士康國際控股(Foxconn International Holdings)的高管們，喜歡談論緊跟“行業遊戲規則的變化趨勢”。這在人們的意料之中，因為該公司在世界各地——從芬蘭埃斯波到美國庫比提諾——的眾多客戶正在不斷地推陳出新（譯者註：上述兩地分別是諾基亞和蘋果總部） 。但現實情況卻是，在這家總部位於深圳的香港上市公司的家門口，正上演著更加重要的變化。富士康週一晚發布的中報顯示，員工上半年的平均收入同比上漲了整整三分之一，達到將近2900美元；企業工資支出總額為2.72億美元，幾乎為毛利潤的兩倍。
For Foxconn's 71 per cent owner, Hon Hai Precision Industry of Taipei, this is nothing particularly new: rising wages on the mainland helped to drive the consolidated operating margin of the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic devices, spanning FIH and 22 other subsidiaries, from 4-5 per cent 10 years ago to a 1-2 per cent range now. Until the 2008-2009 crisis, though, rising sales more than offset that decline, keeping earnings-per-share ticking up by about a quarter each year. Not any more. Hon Hai missed profit estimates for the third quarter in a row this week. Full-year EPS is currently expected at about nine-tenths of its 2007 peak.
對持有富士康71%股份的台北鴻海精密(Hon Hai Precision Industry)來說，這已經不是什麼新鮮事了：大陸工資水平不斷上漲，是導致這家世界最大電子設備合同製造商（旗下擁有富士康國際控股等23家子公司）的綜合營業利潤率從10年前的4%-5%降到如今的1%-2%的一個原因。然而，在2008-09年經濟危機之前，銷售額的升幅超出了營業利潤率的降幅，這使得該公司每股收益得以保持每年約四分之一的增長。如今，這種增長維持不下去了。本周鴻海發布了季報，其營利連續第三季度未達到預期。人們現在預測，鴻海今年全年的每股收益將為2007年峰值的九成左右。
Even if chairman Terry Gou succeeds in protecting Hon Hai's top line, investments in new areas such as solar energy and cloud computing may keep net margins low. And the more the group scrambles to adjust to structural pressures, the less sure-footed it looks: witness the deadly explosion in M​​ay at a polishing facility for iPad 2 casings in Chengdu; production had been relocated there only months earlier from more expensive Shenzhen. Little wonder the stock's valuation premium has all but evaporated. Hon Hai and its offshoots are looking like relics from another era.
即便董事長郭台銘(Terry Gou)成功保住鴻海的營收，該集團在太陽能和雲計算等新領域的投資也可能會壓低淨利潤率。鴻海越是心急火燎地作出調整、以應對結構性壓力，它的形勢似乎就越不順利：5月份，鴻海設在成都的iPad2外殼拋光工廠發生爆炸，造成人員傷亡，而這家工廠是幾個月前剛剛從用工成本更高的深圳搬遷來的。難怪鴻海股票的估值溢價幾乎完全蒸發了。鴻海及其子公司現在看起來越來越像上一個時代​​留下來的古董。

譯者/何黎