Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-19
By: CNA
Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group and China’s Alibaba Group Holding agreed on Thursday that they
A screenshot from SoftBank’s official website showing, from left, Terry Gou, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, and Jack Ma pictured with Pepper in an undated photo. (File photo/CNA)
will each invest 14.5 billion yen (US$117.4 million) in SoftBank Robotics Holdings Corporation, the SoftBank Group’s intermediate holding company responsible for its robotics business.
Under the agreement, upon the completion of the investment by Alibaba and Foxconn, SoftBank’s share ownership ratio in SoftBank Robotics will become 60% and Alibaba and Foxconn will each hold ownership stakes of 20%, the companies said in a joint statement.
SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn will build a structure to bring Pepper–a robot that can interact with human emotion–and other robotics businesses to global markets, and cooperate with the aim of spreading and developing the robotics industry on a worldwide scale, the statement said.
“Foxconn is pleased to be partnering with SoftBank and Alibaba as part of our effort to drive the advancement of robotics engineering,” said Terry Gou, founder and CEO of Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, which manufactures iPhones and iPads for Apple. [FULL STORY]
