Huawei's subsidiary acquires lens business, targeting Apple orders

According to the Economic Daily, Hon Hai Group's investment in Sharp announced yesterday that it would sell the shares of its lens factory Kantatsu's Lianyungang plant to Liaoning Zhonglan Electronic Technology (ZET). Zhonglan Electronic Technology is a subsidiary of Huawei Group and a benchmark manufacturer of voice coil motors (VCM), a key lens component. This acquisition will allow Huawei Group to further integrate the lens and VCM capabilities, expand its optical lens power, and approach manufacturers such as Largan and Yujing Optical, aiming at Apple and non-Apple orders.

Although Largan is famous for its Apple concept stocks, it also supplies Huawei, OPPO, vivo and other brands. Its non-Apple revenue accounts for a larger proportion than Apple. Huawei is expanding its optical lens business, and the market is focusing on the future. Huawei will become Largan's competitor in the optical lens market, and a battle for orders is imminent.

In addition to the battle for non-evaluation orders, Kangdazhi is one of the supply chains for Apple's iPhone lenses. After this transaction, the battle for Apple's optical lens orders in the future will become even more intense.

Since the beginning of this year, the market has been rumored that under the instruction of Apple, Kangdazhi plans to sell its Lianyungang factory in mainland China for 18 billion yen (about 870 million yuan). The outside world originally named the buyers as Sunny Optical and AAC Technologies, but unexpectedly, Huawei forces came out and won. Sharp did not disclose the transaction amount between the two parties. It is understood that the reason why Huawei forces won the bid was because they offered the highest price, which also highlights Huawei's attitude of "must win" in this case.

Zhonglan Electronics is a newly emerged voice coil motor manufacturer in mainland China in recent years. It is understood that Zhonglan Electronics hopes to enter the iPhone supply chain and further expand its business scale by acquiring Kangdazhi Lianyungang Company.

Industry insiders revealed that Contec's performance has been sluggish in recent years, and it has lost the Apple order. For Hon Hai Group and Sharp, selling to Bluestar Electronics not only gets a higher price, but also does not conflict with Hon Hai's business. Sharp is the largest shareholder of Contec, currently holding 53.25% of the shares. If Hon Teng's shares are included, the overall shareholding is 75%. It is understood that Sharp Chairman Tai Jeng-wu led the sale.

Sharp said that Contec mainly manufactures and sells lenses for smartphones, but it is carrying out fundamental structural reforms due to the increasingly competitive environment, poor performance, and the recent accounting fraud incident that led to the revision of performance forecasts. As part of the reform, Contec decided to sell the Lianyungang factory, which has a heavy investment burden, to improve its financial situation.