Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the Apple 2020 World Developers Conference (WWDC) at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California.
Brooks Kraft / Apple Inc / Brochure via Reuters
Apple buys many smaller companies and doesn’t talk about what it plans to do with them.
However, on Thursday, Apple CEO Tim Cook shed some light on the company’s acquisition strategy in an interview with CNBC, while contrasting with other large tech companies that testified before the Antimonopoly Subcommittee. of the House on Wednesday.
“If you look at the things behind the investigation, things are acquisitions, and if they noticed, we didn’t get any acquisitions questions because our focus on acquisitions has been buying companies where we have challenges and IP, and then make them a feature on the phone, “Cook said in the interview.
Cook is arguing that Apple does not buy competitors: it buys companies that have products or other technology that Apple can turn into features.
Although Cook failed to name his Big Tech rivals, emails released by the subcommittee on Thursday show that Facebook executives discussed the acquisition of Instagram internally in the context of eliminating a competitor. The emails also showed that Amazon employees lowered the price of Diapers.com to gain market share. Amazon bought Quidsi, its parent company, in 2010.
Cook reinforces his point: “An example of that was Touch ID. We bought a company that accelerated a Touch ID at one point.”
There are other examples, too: In 2017, Apple bought Workflow, an automation app, which is now the built-in shortcut app on iPhones. In 2018, he bought Texture, a subscription service to a digital magazine, which is now the foundation of Apple News +. Animoji avatar users can enter texts stemming from the 2015 FaceShift acquisition. Siri was the product of an acquisition. Apple’s industry-leading mobile chips are the direct result of the 2008 purchase of PA Semi.
Other deals went to companies that are closer to being competitors than Apple. In 2017, Apple bought Beddit, a Finnish hardware sleep tracker. Apple still sells Beddits and even updated the hardware, but many features were removed in 2019, and Apple will add sleep tracking as a feature in its latest Apple Watch software this fall.
Apple buys many smaller companies and does not always announce acquisitions. So far in 2020, five Apple purchases have been publicly revealed, none of which have an official price attached to the transaction. Most of Apple’s acquisitions are small enough that the company doesn’t need to report them to the SEC
Cook said last year that Apple buys a company every few weeks. Apple’s biggest ever deal was for Beats in 2014 for $ 3 billion. Apple still sells Beats headphones and transformed its music streaming service into Apple Music.
.
