According to the reports, Toshiba is apparently trying to sell off its storage chip business. The reports are claiming that this was done as Toshiba had lost its US nuclear unit Westinghouse, which filed for bankruptcy protection, and to help make up for the loss of that business, Toshiba will be selling off its storage business to potentially offset any losses.
Now according to a report from The Korea Herald, a couple of high profile tech companies are said to be bidding on the business, which includes Apple and Google. SK Hynix was also said to be making a bid for the company, but apparently with Apple and Google throwing their names into the hat, the report claims that SK Hynix’s chances of winning the bid have been lowered.
As it stands Apple is a customer of Toshiba who supplies the company with NAND flash storage for its products, and if Apple were to acquire the company it would basically mean that Apple will no longer have to rely on third-party companies to supply their components, or to be more specific, Apple might have to rely much less on the likes of Samsung for their mobile NAND components.
It is said that Toshiba’s NAND chips account for about 20% of the NAND market which is a pretty hefty chunk, so not only would Apple benefit from being able to supply themselves, but they could have another potential revenue stream in which these NAND chips could be supplied to other companies.