Apple and Amazon will contribute funds to Foxconn's initiative to buy the memory division of Toshiba, one of the largest manufacturers of memory and chips in the world. The president of Foxconn confirmed during this day that Apple and Amazon are two of the companies that will contribute funds to the offer made for the acquisition of Toshiba's chip division.
Apple and Amazon would offer several billion dollars to contribute to the acquisition of the Toshiba division, so they will also own a percentage of it. Apple could try to obtain up to 20% of the percentage of shares of this Toshiba division, so it could reduce its long-term purchase costs for the memories used in iDevices.
Although multiple companies are interested in grouping together to buy this memory division from Toshiba, the Japanese government must approve the sale. At the moment, the Japanese government does not want Toshiba's memory division to go to a foreign group of companies, including one from China, in order to protect Toshiba's technologies.
Despite this, the presence of those from Apple could convince the government to approve the sale, so it remains to be seen what will happen in the end.
"Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc will join Foxconn's bid for Toshiba Corp's semiconductor business," the Nikkei business daily quoted Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou as saying on Monday. The two US technology giants plan to "chip in funds", Gou said in an interview, according to the newspaper. It was not immediately clear if this would take the form of a direct investment in the semiconductor unit or would be financing for the deal."
