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Visualizing Major Tech Acquisitions (1991-2018)

Published

5 years ago

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Launch the interactive version below, or go to our story for simpler, static images

Interactive: Visualizing Major Tech Acquisitions (1991-2018)

To stay successful in tech, companies must find a way to walk alongside the cutting edge of innovation.

Companies do this partially by devoting a large portion of their resources towards research and development (R&D) – but to hedge their bets, these companies also are in constant negotiations to gobble up new startups that could be strategic to their futures.

In this giant game of Pac-Man, most of the acquisitions are small and sequential, just like the dots that make up the arcade game’s classic maze. That said, sometimes these tech giants get lucky, such as in Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, and buyouts turn into power-ups that can change the dynamics of the game entirely.

Tech Acquisitions by Company

Today’s interactive infographic comes to us from IG and it allows you to compare the tech acquisitions made by dominant companies such as Facebook, Apple, IBM, or Cisco.

Acquisitions can be sorted by industry filters (i.e. e-commerce, security, etc.) and different acquiring companies can be switched in. There are also different tabs that show total M&A expenditures by company, M&A activity by CEO, and frequency of acquisitions measured in quantity per year.

The Big Picture

Before we go into specific acquisitions, let’s look at the big picture using images pulled from the interactive version of the graphic.

Here is a comparison of the number of acquisitions made since 1991, for each major company on the list:

Number of tech acquisitions

Google has made the most acquisitions, averaging about 10 to 11 per year. That adds up to a total of 214 since the company was founded.

Tech acquisitions by dollar amount

Interestingly, while Google has had the most acquisitions, it only ranks in 6th out of this group in terms of dollars spent. Giants like Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM may make fewer acquisitions, but the companies they do buy tend to be more established with higher valuations.

As an example of this: Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion. That’s more than Amazon has spent on all of its acquisitions (including Whole Foods) combined.

The Big Five

Finally, here’s a comparison of the big five – Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google (Alphabet) – which are also the five largest companies by market capitalization in the United States.

The Big Five Tech Companies

On the interactive version, it’s possible to highlight each acquisition to get the deal value and company name.

But, even on the static version above, it’s noticeable that each of the Big Five has made at least one real sizable acquisition. Those are the circles that stand out the most on the timeline:

  • 2011: Google buys Motorola for $12.5 billion
  • 2014: Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19 billion, and Apple buys Beats for $3 billion
  • 2016: Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2 billion
  • 2017: Amazon buys Whole Foods for $13.7 billion

The gobbling activity for these Big Five has continued into 2018, as well.

In fact, just in June 2018, Microsoft announced the acquisition of code repository GitHub for $7.5 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

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Technology

Charting Grand Theft Auto: GTA’s Budget and Revenues

Dive into the GTA budget through the years, with GTA VI set to be the most expensive video game of all time.

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1 day ago

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December 5, 2023

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A cropped chart comparing the GTA budget and revenue across three game titles.

Charting Grand Theft Auto: GTA’s Budget and Revenues

Over 10 years since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V), the second most-sold video game in history, Rockstar Games has announced its sequel GTA VI will be “coming 2025.”

As the anticipation only grows for this next big entry in the franchise, we take a look at the GTA budget through the years. How much have the last two games cost to make, how much have they earned, and how do they compare with the latest entry?

Data for this visualization comes from Statista, TweakTown, and Twitch Metrics.

How Much Has GTA VI Cost to Make?

The GTA franchise has grown enormously in scale from humble beginnings as a top-down, 2D video game in 1997. Fifteen installments later, the upcoming release, GTA VI, is estimated to be the most expensive video game to be made yet.

Here’s a look at how much GTA VI and the last two major releases cost, and how much revenue they’ve earned as of August 2023.

YearTitleProduction Costs ($)Revenue ($)Copies Sold
2025 (est.)GTA VI$2B (rumored)N/AN/A
2013GTA V $265M$7.7B185M
2008GTA IV$100M$2B25M

In 2008, GTA IV cost around $100 million—already a budget that rivalled big Hollywood releases. However with 25 million copies sold, the game earned nearly $2 billion—a five-fold return on its production cost.

Five years later, GTA V (2013) cost more than $200 million to make—twice GTA IV’s budget. A decade after its release, GTA V has generated close to $8 billion, with hundreds of millions in annual revenue from subscriptions and in-game purchases—a model that its successor is sure to follow.

In fact, subscription fees and in-game purchases represented 78% of Take-Two Interactive’s (parent of GTA developer Rockstar Games) revenues in 2023.

Analysts estimate the to-be-released GTA VI’s costs at $2 billion, including marketing and other expenses. A massive open-world (set in the Miami-inspired “Vice City”), cutting edge graphics, and a reportedly brand-new game engine are all reasons for the game’s outsized budget.

For comparison, the current most expensive games to have been made include Red Dead Redemption 2 (also by Rockstar) and Star Citizen, both reportedly with a $500 million budget.

Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive shares are up more than 50% for the year.

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