Sure, Apple's prepay financial arrangement might have some outsized influence in smaller, riskier, or declining businesses, such as GTAT or JDI, but there is no

Sure, Apple's prepay financial arrangement might have some outsized influence in smaller, riskier, or declining businesses, such as GTAT or JDI, but there is nothing special about pre-pay, especially in this market and this particular industry. Top fabless makers from Qualcomm, to nVidia, to AMD, to TSMC are flushed with money and are desperately competing for capacity. In fact, TSMC recently disclosed that they received over $3.8B in such prepay, or "temporary receipt" from various customers for their future nodes [1]. Further, Samsung and TSMC routinely spend many more billions on capex every year. Both companies not only have many billions stashed away, but also have the means to finance them without relying on Apple. For instance, Samsung's capex in 2020 was nearly $30B; TSMC ~$25B, vs Apple's $7B. Sure, Apple is a big consumer of the latest nodes, but the process nodes will advance with or without Apple or Apple's money. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-collects-huge-prepayments https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-collects-huge-prepaym...