2/25/2021 Apple buys a company every three to four weeks - BBC News

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Apple buys a company every three to four

weeks
23 hours ago Comments

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Apple chief executive Tim Cook

Apple has acquired about 100 companies over the last six years, the
company’s chief executive Tim Cook has revealed.

That works out at a company every three to four weeks, he told Apple’s annual
meeting of shareholders on Tuesday.

Apple recently delivered its largest quarter by revenue of all time, bringing in
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$111.4bn (£78.7bn) in the first-quarter of its fiscal year 2021.

Mr Cook told the shareholders meeting that the acquisitions are mostly aimed
at acquiring technology and talent.

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Apple's largest acquisition in the last decade was its $3bn purchase of Beats
Electronics, the headphone maker founded by rapper and producer Dr Dre.

Another high profile purchase was music recognition soware company

Shazam, for $400m in 2018.

Most oen, Apple buys smaller technology firms and then incorporates their
innovations into its own products.

One example is PrimeSense, an Israeli 3D sensing company whose technology

contributed to Apple’s FaceID.

Apple has also invested in back-end technology that wouldn’t be so obvious to

iPhone or Macbook users.

Self-driving, podcasts and more

Apple's list of acquisitions and investments is extremely varied.

In the past year, Apple has bought several artificial intelligence (AI)
companies, a virtual reality events business, a payments startup and a podcast
business, among others.

In 2019, Apple bought Drive.ai, a self-driving shuttle firm, in an effort to boost

its own foray into self-driving technologies.

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In 2016, the company also took a $1bn stake in Chinese ride-hailing service
Didi Chuxing, although it wasn’t a controlling interest.

Deep pockets
Apple is an immensely profitable juggernaut worth more than $2trn, so it has
plenty of money to make acquisitions.

But even if it has bought 100 companies in six years, Apple appears to be very
selective about what it buys.

For example, Tesla founder Elon Musk recently revealed that he approached
Mr Cook to buy the electric car business when it was struggling in 2013.

Mr Cook didn't take the meeting, Mr Musk said.

Measured by value, Apple’s acquisitions are actually far more restrained than
those of many of its tech rivals.

Microso paid $26bn for LinkedIn, Amazon paid $13.7bn for Whole Foods and
Facebook paid $19bn for WhatsApp.

Apple’s ten largest purchases put together would still be worth far less than
any of those deals.

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Dr. Dre Artificial intelligence Apple Companies Mergers and acquisitions

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