Solectron
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"SCI was joined by the likes of Solectron, Flextronics, Celestica, and Jabil—all North America–based contract manufacturers who collectively killed off the entire concept of the do-it-yourself, vertically integrated computer company."
"The 1990s had seen an incredible stock-market boom among US-headquartered contract manufacturers that had followed in the wake of SCI. There was massive consolidation as companies few people had ever heard of merged in a battle for scale. Solectron alone acquired some twenty companies in the decade, and in the five years leading up to 1999 its market value grew tenfold. Revenue at Flextronics, a rival, experienced average annual growth of 78 percent in the late nineties, aided by mergers."
"Yet it’s worth highlighting how recently Foxconn developed this reputation. In 1999, it was a company with $1.8 billion of revenue, far smaller than Solectron, SCI, or Flextronics, its US rivals. By 2010, Foxconn revenues were $98 billion, more than those of its five biggest competitors combined. And Foxconn’s extraordinary growth in those eleven years is the consequence of one client more than any other: Apple."