Could it just be that investing in Apple could be seen as "I get all the upside of any benefits I would get in investing in TSMC, with the additional upside of getting exposure to all of Apple's product decisions in non-chip related markets ( eg financial, content, et al )?" Like, if TSMC invented a new fab process tomorrow that was amazing, that'd be cool, but it'd be unlikely to make a substantial increase in stock prices in its future as that sort of is how TSMC normally behaves. That's their whole business. But Apple has a history of unlocking new markets and adding new cash flows, plus doing a pretty good job maintaining their current cash flows, so you get more upside on Apple, plus a hedged exposure to TSMC?
I say all that with full acknowledgement I'm just like, playing a guessing game at professionals here.
TSMC isn't a factory, it is a group of people who know how to design, build and operate the most advanced chip factories.
This is different than what Intel/AMD/Nvidia/Apple does when designing their own chips, right?
Even designing different types of chips require different competencies. Apple couldn’t just design a graphics chip to compete with Nvidia and infamously, Intel couldn’t design a modem chip to compete with Qualcomm