Foxit Software
Fujian Foxit Software Development Joint Stock Co., Ltd., also known as Foxit Software, is a software developer based in Fuzhou, China, with subsidiaries in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia, that develops Portable Document Format software and tools used to create, edit, eSign, and secure files and digital documents. It also has other offices in Fuzhou, Beijing, Berlin, South Yarra, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, France, North Macedonia, and Slovakia.
As of 2016, there were about 425 million Foxit users of Foxit's software, with sales to more than 100,000 customers in 200 countries.
Foxit Software was named "#2 Best PDF Editor Software of 2022" by ComHQ.
History
Foxit Software was founded in 2001 by Eugene Y. Xiong, a Chinese national with permanent residence in the United States, to develop similar PDF software products to those from Adobe Systems and other PDF vendors, and offer them at lower prices. In 2009, Foxit Software Company incorporated as Foxit Corporation.In December 2015, Foxit went public on the Chinese over-the-counter market NEEQ. Before 2019, Amazon was an early investor and substantial shareholder of Foxit, once owning 12.38% of the latter's shares, before divesting in 2019 to make Foxit eligible for a simplified IPO process for domestic companies in China.
In June 2020, Foxit Software received permission to list in the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market. According to Foxit's pre-IPO disclosures, it seeks to raise RMB 409 million.
As a technology company, Foxit is eligible to receive a reduced tax rate of 15% in China. It also received RMB 13 million of Chinese government subsidies in 2019. As of 2019, most of Foxit's software development has been taking place within China, while over 90% of its revenue was earned outside of China, in markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia. The vast majority of its net profit is sourced from the United States. It listed Adobe Inc. as its biggest competitor.
Acquisitions
Foxit has grown organically and through several acquisitions.| Company | Date of close |
| Dataintro | August 2014 |
| LuraTech | October 2015 |
| Debenu | March 2016 |
| Sumilux | July 2016 |
| CVISION Technologies | August 2017 |
| eSignGenie | October 2021 |
Standards involvement
Foxit has contributed to the evolution of ISO 32000 and ISO 19005 standards.Products
| Product name | Formerly | Platform |
| PDF Editor Pro | Foxit PhantomPDF Business | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS, Android, and Chromebooks |
| PDF Editor | Foxit PhantomPDF Standard, Foxit PhantomPDF Online, Foxit PhantomPDF Mac, Foxit PDF Reader Mobile | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS, Android, and Chromebooks |
| PDF Reader | Foxit Reader, Foxit PDF Reader Mobile | Windows, macOS, Web, iOS, Android, and Chromebooks |
| Foxit eSign | Foxit Sign | |
| Volume Automation | PDF Compressor, Rendition Server, Digital Transformation Services, Maestro Server OCR | Web, Windows, Linux |
| PDF SDK | N/A | Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Universal Windows Platform |
Foxit Reader
The company's first product, Foxit Reader, was released in 2004. It provides a way to view, create and sign PDF files, and add annotations to them. Foxit Reader 3.0 offers comparable functionality to Adobe Reader. Older versions were notable for their speed and small file sizes. Foxit released version 8.0 in 2016. The software is pre-installed on Windows PCs from HP, Acer, and ASUS. Foxit released version 9.0 in 2017. The software is available as a freeware download for PCs running Windows 7, MacOS and older versions of Linux.The Foxit installer was bundled with potentially unwanted programs like the Ask Toolbar and OpenCandy which installed the browser-hijacking malware Conduit.
In July 2014, the Internet Storm Center reported that the mobile version for iPhone was transmitting unencrypted telemetry and other data to remote servers located in China despite users attempting to opt out of such data collection.