Apple’s two leading supply chain partners Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) are joining hands to bid for a majority stake in Toshiba’s memory business, and be able to take on Samsung Electronics for dominance in the flash memory market, according to a Chinese-language newspaper Liberty Times (via DigiTimes).
The report notes that two companies’ bidding team is currently in Japan, “aggressively” preparing for document submission prior to the March 29 first-round bidding. Meanwhile, Foxconn’s chairman Terry Guo has said that demand for storage will start rising as the 8K resolution era arrives and Foxconn also has such demand and likes to push further into the related industry. He also said that he wants Foxconn to form a partnership with Toshiba, “but will not try to force it” to happen.
Guo also stated that Foxconn is willing to assist Toshiba using the same business strategy it adopted for its partnership with Sharp and Toshiba should not have any concerns about competition partnering with Foxconn. Guo also promised to keep all key technologies in Japan.
Guo pointed out that Foxconn is currently the largest storage equipment maker worldwide and seeing the IT market has started increasing their adoption of solid state drives (SSDs), he believes demand will rise in the upcoming years.
Foxconn is Apple’s primary assembler, and also owns Sharp, which provides some displays, while TSMC produces the A-series processors used in iPhones and iPads.
