Earlier this week, Amazon bought smart doorbell company Ring, bringing its total number of acquisitions in the first two months of 2018 to two — the same as Apple or Google.
Amazon’s Ring buy gives it the same number of acquisitions this year as Apple or Google
The online retailer’s acquisitions by the numbers.
Rani Molla was a senior correspondent at Vox and has been focusing her reporting on the future of work. She has covered business and technology for more than a decade — often in charts — including at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.
Depending on its final valuation — which is expected to be over $1 billion — Ring could be Amazon’s second-biggest acquisition ever. Amazon made its biggest acquisition, the $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods, last year. The Ring buy could unseat the ranking of Amazon’s 2009 purchase of online shoe company Zappos.
Here’s Amazon’s biggest acquisitions:
Amazon made its first buy of the year in January, when its cloud business acquired cybersecurity startup Sqrrl. While two acquisitions so far in 2018 is competitive with Apple and Google, it’s too early to know how Amazon’s acquisition strategy will play out over the year.
Last year, Amazon had a relatively aggressive M&A strategy, buying 10 VC-backed companies, according to venture capital database CB Insights.
Over its whole history, Amazon has rarely made more than two purchases each quarter — fewer than other big tech companies. In three of the last five years, Amazon has made fewer acquisitions than Google, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft.
What will Amazon buy next? Take a look at some predictions Recode’s Jason Del Rey made at the beginning of this year.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
