While Carl iCahn continues to pressure Apple to buy back more of its stock from investors, they’ve been quietly going about the business of doing business, as the folks in Cupertino spent over a half-billion dollars last quarter acquiring companies.
Apple revealed in its quarterly 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it spent $525 million on acquisitions in the three-month period that ended Dec. 28, 2013. That was up from $284 million spent by the company in the same period a year prior.
Analyst Maynard Um of Wells Fargo believes the acquisitions made in the quarter include:
- Personal assistant app Cue, said to be bought for at least $35 million.
- 3D motion sensor firm PrimeSense, in a November deal rumored to be worth $360 million.
- Topsy, a social media analytics firm, was rumored in December to have been purchased for over $200 million.
So, the prices on those acquisitions add up to $595 million, so either Apple got a deal on some of the acquisitions, or they occurred before the reported quarter.
Apple’s previous acquisitions have occasionally led to new products or functionality in current products. Apple’s acquisition of AuthenTec’s fingerprint scanning technology in 2012 resulted in the Touch ID feature of the iPhone 5s.
