Foxconn’s CEO Terry Gou is no fan of Samsung. In fact, according to a new report, he’s been trying to use his influence as Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner to get Apple to lessen its dependency on Samsung — while a giving a shot to other companies.
The reason? He thinks Taiwanese manufacturers need to work together to overcome the growing threat of the South Korean tech giant, which could potentially swallow all of their jobs.
Today’s report specifically relates to the battle over Apple’s A9 processor orders, which have gone back and forth between Samsung and TSMC over the past few months. Although Samsung seems to have scored the lion’s share of orders, Gou has admitted to lobbying on behalf of TSMC.
It might have done some good, too, since recent reports suggest that instead of going with a plan to offer Samsung 100 percent of all A9 orders, TSMC has now scored 30 percent of said orders.
Apple’s extremely unlikely to come out and reveal exactly how or why it made the decision it did, so we’ll have no way of knowing for sure — but it’s certainly interesting that even companies which rely on Apple as much as Foxconn does are willing to stick their neck out to try and get the company to sever ties with Samsung.