Tim Cook says that Apple has bought 20 to 25 companies in the last six months
Apple is now typically buying a company every two to three weeks, CEO Tim Cook said in an interview during Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting this weekend.
In the last six months alone Apple has snapped up 20 to 25 businesses, Cook told CNBC. These aren't usually announced, the executive explained, because they're often small firms and Apple is "primarily looking for talent and intellectual property."
After spending on projects like its $1 billion secondary campus in Austin the company looks for targets of opportunity, Cook continued.
"If we have money left over, we look to see what else we [can] do," he commented. "We acquire everything that we need that can fit and has a strategic purpose to it. And so we acquire a company on average, every two to three weeks."
Some recent small-scale takeovers include backend startup Stamplay and machine learning outfit Laserlike. Other areas of interest include augmented reality and Apple Music content.
Analysts and investors have sometimes pushed Apple to use its cash reserves -- now topping $225.4 billion -- to buy out large corporations, even rivals like Netflix or Tesla. It hasn't made any such purchase since 2014, when it spent $3 billion on buying Beats to lay the groundwork for Apple Music and future audio gear.
Its last major purchase was Texture, announced during SXSW 2018, for which it allegedly paid at least $485 million. That service formed the basis for Apple News+, which lets people read a collection of magazines and newspapers for a flat monthly fee.
In the last six months alone Apple has snapped up 20 to 25 businesses, Cook told CNBC. These aren't usually announced, the executive explained, because they're often small firms and Apple is "primarily looking for talent and intellectual property."
After spending on projects like its $1 billion secondary campus in Austin the company looks for targets of opportunity, Cook continued.
"If we have money left over, we look to see what else we [can] do," he commented. "We acquire everything that we need that can fit and has a strategic purpose to it. And so we acquire a company on average, every two to three weeks."
Some recent small-scale takeovers include backend startup Stamplay and machine learning outfit Laserlike. Other areas of interest include augmented reality and Apple Music content.
Analysts and investors have sometimes pushed Apple to use its cash reserves -- now topping $225.4 billion -- to buy out large corporations, even rivals like Netflix or Tesla. It hasn't made any such purchase since 2014, when it spent $3 billion on buying Beats to lay the groundwork for Apple Music and future audio gear.
Its last major purchase was Texture, announced during SXSW 2018, for which it allegedly paid at least $485 million. That service formed the basis for Apple News+, which lets people read a collection of magazines and newspapers for a flat monthly fee.
Comments
Personally, I think Apple is making itself too large to manage effectively. On a much smaller scale, I've seen this before. I worked for a company that had over 100 developers working on an e-commerce project and little got accomplished. We got rid of the contractors and knocked the staff down to 22 and because 22 people could be easily managed, far more was accomplished.
Was the Beats acquisition really worth the $billions they paid? Apple couldn't have instead produced headphones that competed with Beats and knocked them out of the market with superior marketing for far less money? While Beats headphones are popular, it's not like they're actually any good. They probably could have bought Sennheiser for a fraction of the cost or Grado for pocket change.
I have to wonder that with the speed that Apple is acquiring these companies, how many of them are successfully integrated into Apple where Apple actually makes use of the tech. If they're buying them just to acquire patents as a protection against lawsuits, that's another matter.
With all of that cash and since Apple is emphasizing services because that's where the growth is, I also have to wonder if they shouldn't have attempted to buy 20th Century Fox (which went to Disney) or Warner (which went to AT&T).
The rest of your rant is silly. Cars are incremental, and expensive, and come out once a year. What the hell are all those auto workers doing?! Right??
Also, Beats? Yeah they made their money back in the first year or two as I recall. Massive mind share, massive profit generator. Things those in business seek out...not being technically superior (see "Betamax", -ed).
https://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/tag/headphone-market-shares/
"Interestingly, Apple is the only top 20 headphone brand whose owners are not majority male."
Perhaps you don't have a clue wrt Beats, and more generally Apple, so why wouldn't I assume you missed the mark as well on the rest of your post?
2) He may know every single one but is using a range because exact statements like "we've bought 23 companies this year" or "we purchase an average of 5.75 companies per month" are not received well in the colloquial. In a quarterly conference call being precise would have more relevance. Or, there could be a range because of how one can measure a purchase. If there's an agreement in place but the paperwork has not been signed I can argue that it's both purchased and not purchased. Kinda like how buying a house can have that SOLD sign on it, but it's also still in the previous owners hands until all the paperwork has been signed. There could even be more steps if you involve lawyers to look over agreements or if gov't agencies have to be involved in the process.
One of the problems they is buying companies and trying to stitch them together. Sometimes it doesn’t work well like Apple maps when it first came out.
Siri started out ok and then it hit a wall and hasn’t really recovered.
That’s because a lot of times the talent that created those things left Apple because they didn’t seem to fit well with the rest of the teams they have to work with.
I think Apple should spend more money performing post mortems on ideas that started out well and ended up poorly. That way they can get a better understanding on how a big company can integrate a smaller one and not overwhelm the talent they have acquired.
The same thing happened with Google and their Nest brand. You can’t just jam two companies together and expect them to work well. Tech companies might need mediators to help strengthen relationships between themselves and the companies they acquire.
Yup, there ya go.
What does that mean?
Apple is majority female owned or something?
I don't believe that's true.
I can't speak for what the author of the article was intending, but, that is my takeaway.
I suppose that could be true. I see all sorts of people, including women, wearing Apple headphones outside, especially AirPods all of the time. I'm not sure that I would consider Apple's headphones to be in the typical "audiophile" category, but I suppose that doesn't make a difference, as long as they are selling well and lots of people are buying them, which is what is happening.
2) The original iPhone was a completely new as a device for Apple, but the HW used a lot of off the shelf components. I believe the CPU was the same between the original and iPhone 3G models with a slight uptick in the clock rate.
3) If you want to look at customizations, like the chassis, each new iPhone is Apple designing the chassis to fit that generation's components. That makes them all custom, but that isn't costly. What is costly is engineering a way to make the frame the antenna, designing your own cores around your OS and vice versa. That all happened after their R&D had major increases. On top of that, the R is R&D stands for research. That doesn't mean that research leads to a product. Even development (the D is R&D) can have setbacks like with AirPower. You not knowing every product Apple is using that R&D budget for doesn't mean they are only using it for products in which are aware.
4) I know we like to think Apple doesn't release stuff fast enough because we desire to increase our instant gratification, but when you look at when they started offering new product categories it's happened a lot more often in recent years.
I know sound quality is very subjective but how many pairs of Beats headphones have you listened to recently?
Please. How are your chinese knockoffs staying focused with ripoffs like their AirPod wannabes? Where is the "concern"?