Apple supplier Foxconn posts 14.5 percent drop in first-quarter net profit

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and a key Apple supplier, posted a 14.5 percent fall in first-quarter net profit on Monday, lagging estimates despite a strong quarter for the U.S. iPhone maker.

Net profit for the first three months of 2018 for the company known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co reached T$24.08 billion ($809 million), the company said in a filing to the Taiwan stock exchange.

That was down 14.5 percent from T$28.168 billion a year earlier, according to Reuters' calculations. The first-quarter result was also lower than an average estimate of T$28.71 billion from nine analysts, Thomson Reuters data showed.

In May Apple reported resilient iPhone sales in quarterly results that topped Wall Street forecasts.

($1 = 29.7650 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee in SINGAPORE and Zhang Min in BEIJING; Writing by Jess Macy Yu; Editing by David Goodman)