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Apple is ready for some retail therapy.
In a rare move, Apple CEO Tim Cook indicated interest in corporate acquisitions.
“We’re very open to M&A that accelerates our road map,” Cook said on Thursday’s earnings call, referring to mergers and acquisitions. “We are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature.”
The CEO added, “We basically ask ourselves whether a company can help us accelerate a road map. If they do, then we’re interested.”
Apple rarely splurges on big acquisitions. Its largest buy was Beats Electronics for $3 billion in 2014, which it used as a starting point to develop Apple Music. In the last few years, the company has bought smaller global fintech, augmented reality, and AI startups.
On Thursday’s call, Cook said Apple has bought seven companies this year from “all walks of life” and was doing a deal once every few weeks. In May, Apple bought video game studio RAC7 for an undisclosed amount.
Still, Apple’s recent eight- to nine-figure deals are small compared with those of its Big Tech counterparts, who have been spending big to stay competitive in the AI and cloud race.
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In March, Google finalized a $32 billion acquisition of the cloud security startup Wiz. In May, OpenAI said that it was acquiring iPhone designer Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io for about $6.4 billion. In June, Meta paid $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in data labelling startup Scale AI.
More acquisitions could be the iPhone maker’s way of playing catch-up in the AI supremacy race that engulfed Big Tech.
Last year, Apple unveiled its Apple Intelligence AI platform. But this year, at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Craig Federighi, a senior vice president of software engineering, said Apple’s work on Siri needed “more time.”
On Thursday, Apple delivered record third-quarter revenue of $94 billion compared to Wall Street’s estimates of $89.3 billion. It also beat on earnings per share, a key profitability measure, which came in at $1.57 compared to the estimated $1.43.
The company’s stock was up 2.4% after hours on Thursday.
Apple is down 17% so far this year because of its failure to release innovative AI products and concerns that tariffs will hurt iPhone sales.
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