Despite Speculation, Apple Reportedly Unlikely to Consider a Big Acquisition

Apple is reportedly unlikely to spend its buildup of cash on a big acquisition.

Although there is commonly speculation that the tech giant will make a large, high-profile acquisition, Apple has rarely done so in the past and is showing no sign of doing it now, Bloomberg reported Thursday (April 6).

There is currently speculation that The Walt Disney Company could be the target of an acquisition by Apple, and there have been similar musings about Netflix, Tesla, Peloton and Sonos in the past, according to the report.

These predictions are especially common during times like the present when Apple’s balance sheet is full of cash and its growth is slowing, the report said.

However, just as the past guesses about acquisitions have come to nothing, the current ones about Disney or any other big buy are unlikely to come true, per the report.

Apple traditionally returns excess cash to shareholders and buys only small startups that it then builds up over a period of years, according to the report.

That is unlikely to change as Apple’s stock is outperforming its peers and is up 25% so far this year. In its most recently quarterly report, Apple deleted a line in which it would report business acquisitions, the report said.

During the company’s most recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said its revenue of $117.2 billion for the quarter was down 5% year over year as COVID restrictions and global disruptions slowed shipments of the new line of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, among other hardware.

However, subscriptions and services were largely unaffected by these issues. Apple achieved a record of $20.8 billion in services during the quarter, Cook said at the time.

Apple won an appeal in the United Kingdom Friday (March 31) that halted a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation of the supply of mobile browsers and browser engines and the distribution of cloud gaming services through app stores on mobile devices.