Hi everyone! This is Lauly, waving hello from Taipei, where we have finally welcomed the arrival of winter. November has passed faster than I expected, as I spent quite some time working on several stories about Foxconn, a key Nvidia and Apple supplier and the world’s biggest contract electronics maker.

I made a short trip to Tokyo at the beginning of this month, conducting an exclusive interview with Foxconn chair Young Liu when he attended Nikkei Forum’s Global Management Dialogue. The interview was even more fruitful than I anticipated. The conversation was natural and smooth, and Liu was frank about sharing Foxconn’s plans in Japan and the US. He also patiently explained his definitions of different levels of robotics used in smart factories.

Leading the contract electronics manufacturing giant since mid-2019, Liu’s personality and management style are very different from his predecessor Terry Gou, Foxconn’s founder and former chair, according to industry analysts and former and current Foxconn employees I spoke with. Reporters like me can also feel a difference. For starters, Liu always greets the media with a big smile, no matter what the occasion. Some other reporters who have covered the company for years describe him as Foxconn’s “underground chief marketing officer”, a characterisation which I don’t disagree with.