Word on the street is that Foxconn has been getting nervous as Jobs' Mob has been diversifying its supplier base in a desperate bid to prop up its margins on the iPhone. Shareholders are also worried, and its share price is down 20 percent since last year and it is demanding that the company kick its Apple dependence. Apple is getting a reputation.

But with its stock down, Foxconn, Taiwan’s second most valuable company with a market value of $51 billion, is under pressure to show that it can convert new initiatives into growth.

The Sharp purchase and a handful of more recent deals - including an agreement announced this week for Sharp to buy Toshiba Corp’s computer business for $36 million - indicates that a push into producing its own branded products is one part of the strategy.

Foxconn chairman Terry Gou told Reuters in an interview that another important plan is move to providing “integrated solutions” for businesses that include both sophisticated hardware and software services such as cloud computing.

The company is betting that it can package its traditional expertise to sell “smart manufacturing” services, including fully automated factories, to other industrial companies.

Such efforts won’t come cheap, and Foxconn is laying the financial and political groundwork for its next chapter with a Shanghai IPO for one of its main subsidiaries, Foxconn Industrial Internet.

The $4.3 billion IPO will provide funding for initiatives in smart manufacturing, cloud computing, data centres and 5G technology, among other areas. Some Chinese state-owned companies are expected to participate in the deal.