(Bloomberg) – SoftBank Group Corp. recently approached Apple Inc. to assess the iPhone maker’s interest in bidding for chip design firm Arm Ltd., according to people familiar with the discussions.
The two firms had preliminary discussions, but Apple does not plan to seek an offer. Arm’s licensing operation would be a bad fit with Apple’s hardware-centric business model. There may also be regulatory concerns about Apple having a key licensee to supply so many rivals. Representatives from SoftBank and Apple declined to comment.
It is rare for Apple to make large acquisitions. SoftBank acquired Arm in 2016 for $ 32 billion. That’s more than 10 times larger than Apple’s largest acquisition to date, its $ 3 billion deal for Beats Electronics LLC in 2014.
Still, the Cupertino, California tech giant has a vested interest in Arm’s fate. Chip designer technology is an important part of the more than 2 billion custom processors that Apple has shipped on iPhones and other devices in the past decade. Mac computers will begin to rely on technology later this year.
Read more: SoftBank’s Arm Ltd. attracts the interest of Nvidia
Apple’s rivals, including Samsung Electronics Co., Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., also use Arm-based processors in many of their devices. If one of these companies ended up owning Arm, it would be more difficult for rivals to access the latest chip technologies.
Apple has been involved in similar situations with other partners in the past. When Toshiba Corp. sold its flash memory business in 2017, Apple invested as part of a consortium. The American company played a central role in the auction’s resolution because flash memory chips are used in all iPhones and iPads to store data. The deal helped keep this corner of the chip market competitive and improved Apple’s negotiating position.
Read more: Toshiba Signs $ 18 Billion Agreement to Sell Chip Arm to Bain
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