June 28, 2019 10:30am
(WPR)---Foxconn appears to have delayed the opening of its manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant. In March, the tech manufacturing company announced that construction on the Mount Pleasant Gen 6 fabrication facility would begin this summer and would be operational by the end of 2020.
But---Thursday morning---an email sent out by the Wisconsin Economic and Development Corporation indicated that the factory will not be completed until early 2021. The email also stated the company had begun pouring the concrete foundations for its "first major manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant," which will be "the first LCD screen fabrication facility of its type in North America. It will have nearly 1 million square feet of building space."
Foxconn's plans have changed several times since announcing its intent to build flat screens in Mount Pleasant back in 2017 with a so-called Gen 10 plant. Foxconn said market changes prompted the company to shift to a smaller Gen 6 facility. The future of Foxconn continues to be questioned by some, particularly after the company briefly changed course earlier this year.
Long-time analyst Alberto Moel who formerly covered the Asian flat-screen industry for research firm Bernstein said this week in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio that Foxconn had been riding technology waves for many years but has hit a plateau.
So far---only one building on the Mount Pleasant campus has been completed — a 120,000-square-foot multi-purpose facility that opened in late 2018. Moel said he believes---eventually---Foxconn will build what it has promised---but---it will likely take decades.
