Apr 3, 2017
Giant Killer$
The Giants are here and they are showing no mercy, they are building by innovation and acquisition. So who these Giants? Well there are numerous tech giants but i have just highlighted a few tech giants and show their growth via acquisitions
Like all giants there are friendly giants and unfriendly giants, the unfriendly giants acquire to destroy and bury their competition whilst the friendly giants see synergy's and squire to build their eco-system
Lets have a look at the Top 5 tech players and their acquisitions
Microsoft Acquisitions
Microsoft buys Skype
Just days after reports that Google and Facebook were interested in partnering with, and possibly buying VoIP company Skype, Microsoft announced that it was buying the company for $8.56 billion in cash.
Last year, Skype had revenue of $860 million on which it posted an operating profit of $264 million. However, overall it made a small loss of $7 million, and had long-term debt of $686 million. This is the second time Skype has been bought out; after being started in 2003, it was purchased by eBay in 2005 for $3.1 billion.
Microsoft buys LinkedIn
$26.2 billion is what Microsoft paid to have the professional social network join its ranks
LinkedIn commands 1587 user searches every 10 seconds and it only makes logical sense for Microsoft to buy LinkedIn as social media is the new operating system and plus they can eventually sell you Office 365 subscriptions through LinkedIn
Microsoft made 10 acquisitions all in all 2016 only and are already up to two in 2017
Facebook Acquisitions
Since launching in 2014, Facebook has nearly 1.7 billion users! And this doesn’t include its other properties like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger just to name a few.
During this wave of extreme growth, Mark Zuckerberg has acquired 68 companies till date.
Facebook has been refereed to as an “old peoples” platform by some millennials, Facebook has even seen this translate into an issue of declining engagement among its teenage users. Facebook even offered Snap INC $3 billion in cash to buy SnapChat
Google Acquisitions
Since its launch in 1998, Google has acquired more than 170 companies.
Amazon Acquisitions
Amazon, the biggest online retailer in the history of the internet, has been acquiring businesses since 1998 when they acquired their first company, Bookpages.
Amazon pulled the rug out from under Google on Monday when the company purchased video game streaming site Twitch.tv for $970 million in cash. Previous reports said Google would be the one buying Twitch, which was reportedly sought after by Yahoo as well.
While the Twitch acquisition is a huge move for Amazon, it’s only the second-largest single purchase from the retail giant, according to company data that was charted for us by Statista. Amazon’s biggest acquisition came in 2009, when it picked up Las Vegas-based online shoe shop Zappos, for a whopping $1.2 billion. Of all of Amazon’s purchases, however, the most important may have been the 2012 acquisition of Kiva Systems, which created Amazon’s incredibly efficient systems for picking, packing, and shipping items from its mammoth warehouses to consumers’ doorsteps.
Amazons latest acquisition was Souq.com $650M (terms undisclosed)
Apple Acquisitions
Apple keep their acquisitions rather quiet and do not seem to have the risk appetite as some of the other players but as of 2015 Apple had made 64 acquisitions
Apples biggest acquisition was the $3Billion it paid for Beats
There have always been doubts about Apple doing a massive, game-changing acquisition, even though rumors regularly emerge that the iPhone-maker may have interest in buying a media giant.
Last year, Apple (AAPL, -0.19%) reportedly considered acquiring Time Warner and possibly Netflix (NFLX, -0.17%).
So Netfix, Apple and Chill might be on the cards
Summary
Eat or be eaten!
