Apple bought 29 companies since start of fiscal 2014, not counting Beats acquisition
July 23, 2014
Apple acquired a total of 29 companies in the last nine months, i.e., since the beginning of fiscal 2014. This was revealed by Apple CEO Tim Cook during the tech titan's earnings call today for the fiscal third quarter of 2014.
According to Cook, five of the 29 companies were purchased by Apple after the end of the previous fiscal quarter in March.
Given Apple's penchant for secrecy, most of the acquired companies are undisclosed. Of the five recently acquired ones, only two have been brought to light: the micro-LED company LuxVue Technology and the social search engine Spotsetter, which Apple purchased in May and June, respectively.
Earlier this year, Apple bought SnappyLabs, the one-man development team behind the popular burst photography app SnappyCam, in January and Burstly, the owner of the popular app testing platform TestFlight, in February.
Apple's other acquisitions from the last three quarters — some confirmed, others just rumored — include the personal assistant app Cue, the 3-D sensing company PrimeSense, the social media analytics firm Topsy, the mapping firm BroadMap, the Evernote competitor Catch, and possibly the speech recognition firm Novauris.
Of course, Apple purchases other companies to integrate their respective technologies into its current and future products and services. When confirming acquisitions, Apple releases the following boilerplate statement: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
As noted by MacRumors, Apple's purchase of Beats, which was announced late last May, is not counted in the 29 acquisition total. This is because the deal, which is Apple's most expensive acquisition yet, is not expected to close in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2014.
