The largest iPhone maker is ready to save Nissan, but not buy it

By late January, it was clear that the strategic partnership agreement between Nissan and Honda would not result in a merger between the Japanese automakers, but after talks between them fell apart, the idea of ​​Foxconn playing a role in saving Nissan Motor’s business began to be actively discussed. The former made it clear that it wanted to work with Nissan, but was not ready to buy the automaker.

Image source: Foxconn

Let us recall that Foxconn is the largest contract manufacturer of Apple electronics and one of Nvidia’s main contractors for the production of server systems based on computing accelerators. Last week it became known that Nissan Motor is open to cooperation with new partners, and Taiwan’s Foxconn was named as one of them. For several years now, the Taiwanese giant has been trying to gain a foothold in the contract manufacturing market for electric vehicles, but outside of its home market, the company has not had much luck with clients. The project for contract assembly of Fisker crossovers failed after the bankruptcy of the customer, and Foxconn has not yet managed to set up assembly of cars for customers at the site purchased from the bankrupt Lordstown Motors in Ohio. By the way, Lordstown Motors was nominally “resurrected” after bankruptcy last spring, but now bears the name Nu Ride and is in no hurry to make statements regarding its future activities.

Foxconn Chairman Young Liu recently made his first public comments regarding its interest in Nissan Motor assets. According to him, Foxconn is not planning to buy Nissan outright, but is ready to acquire a stake in the Japanese company if this is necessary for their further cooperation. “We are not aiming to buy shares, we are looking for cooperation,” Young Liu commented on Foxconn’s interest in Nissan. Moreover, the Taiwanese company is also negotiating cooperation with French automaker Renault, which owns a total of 36% of Nissan Motor shares. According to the Foxconn chairman, the company is not aiming to become an automaker, but is only ready to provide services to customers in the field of development and production of equipment.