Surprise! Apple Turns Laggard Even As Tech Peers Rush Headlong

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Apple Inc., which used to acquire a company every three or four weeks, has dramatically slowed its dealmaking in the past two years, a sign the tech giant is being more choosy in the face of a shaky economy and heightened government scrutiny.

The company spent just $33 million on payments connected to acquisitions in its last fiscal year and $169 million in the first nine months of the current year, according to regulatory filings. That's down from $1.5 billion in fiscal 2020.

Apple is famous for avoiding the kind of blockbuster acquisitions that have enticed its Silicon Valley peers. But the company has spent much of its history snapping up promising startups, some of which formed the basis for popular features such as Siri and Face ID. Just last February, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook noted that Apple had acquired 100 companies in the past six years -- more than one a month on average.

That deal flow has slowed to a trickle. Apple only made two known acquisitions in 2022: the UK-based startups Credit Kudos and AI Music. The first of those two companies developed technology for calculating credit scores, which will likely aid Apple's efforts to build its own infrastructure for financial products. The latter business used artificial intelligence to generate tailor-made music.

Apple's only known takeover in 2021 was the purchase of Primephonic, a classical-music streaming service.

Those numbers don't factor in spending on content for Apple TV , including purchased shows and distribution deals for Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer, but they stand in stark contrast to the recent big bets made by other tech giants.

Microsoft Corp. agreed to purchase Activision Blizzard Inc. in January for about $69 billion. Alphabet