Apple and Amazon are both providing financial backing to Foxconn in a bid on Toshiba's NAND memory division, according to Foxconn's founder and chairman Terry Gou in an interview with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei.
How much Apple and Amazon want to contribue isn't clear. Foxconn itself reportedly made a bid of about $18 billion on Toshiba's chip division. Besides Foxconn also Western Digital, Broadcom and two other parties would be interested.
The Japanese Toshiba want to sell its chip division to compensate for its nuclear division. "Apple and Amazon are offering money together", Gou confirms. "But I cannot comment on how much funds each company is putting on the table"
Previously there were some rumors that Apple, together with Foxconn, would be interested in bidding for the chip division. Taiwanese Foxconn is an important supplier of Apple, it produces and assembles many parts of the iPhone. Also Amazon is a large customer of Foxconn, it gets parts for its Kindle e-reader and Amazon Echo speak from the Taiwanese electronics giant.
Although Foxconn is pretty certain it can acquire Toshiba's chip division, Reuters writes that the Japanese government doesn't consider it as the favorite bidder. Because Foxconn has close ties with China, important technology could get out of Japanese hands.
