Terry Gou among 25 wealthiest global tech billionaires: Forbes

Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) Terry Gou (郭台銘), chairman of Taiwan-based manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (鴻海), is the 23rd richest man in the world's high tech sector, according to Forbes' 2017 list of the 100 richest tech billionaires in the world.

With US$10.2 billion in tech net worth as of Aug. 21, 2017, Gou rose eight notches from a year earlier to occupy the top spot among Taiwanese high-tech entrepreneurs in the latest Forbes rankings, the magazine said.

People active in hardware, software, social media, online gambling and high-tech manufacturing were considered for the list, according to the magazine.

Hon Hai, known internationally as Foxconn, is the world's largest contract electronics maker and assembles iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc.

Before the top 100 tech billionaires list was released on Aug. 23, Gou ranked as the second among the top 50 richest men in Taiwan in 2017 and the 182nd wealthiest billionaire in the world in the previous two rankings released by Forbes earlier this year.

Two other Taiwanese tech tycoons made the latest top 100 tech billionaires list. Barry Lam (林百里), chairman of Quanta Computer Inc. (廣達), ranked 60th with a net tech worth of US$4.2 billion, and Scott Lin (林耀英), co-founder of Largan Precision Co. (大立光), ranked 76th with a net tech worth of US$3.2 billion.

Quanta is the world's largest contract notebook computer maker and also one of the main suppliers of Apple's smart watches.

According to Forbes, Largan, which makes 90 percent of all rear lenses for Apple's iPhones, generated about 40 percent of its total revenue from Apple in 2016. Hon Hai, Quanta and Largan are dubbed "Apple concept stocks" in Taiwan's stock market.

The 2017 tech billionaire ranking was dominated by U.S.-based entrepreneurs, who took 50 out of the 100 spots on list, including the top 6 places, Forbes said.

Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates retained the top position in the 2017 rankings with a net tech worth of US$84.5 billion, ahead of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (No. 2, US$81.7 billion), and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook (No. 3, US$69.6 billion).

They were followed by Oracle CEO and founder Larry Ellison, (No. 4, US$59.3 billion), Alphabet CEO Larry Page (No. 5, US$43.9 billion), and Alphabet President Sergey Brin (No. 6, US$42.7 billion).

According to Forbes, the combined net worth of the top 100 richest tech business men topped US$1 trillion, up 21 percent from a year earlier.