Amazon’s reported 2021 acquisition total is $496 million.
While there are no easy answers to this question, the numbers on tech and retail giant Amazon’s (AMZN) – Get Amazon.com, Inc. Report latest annual report seem to suggest that the company is not on a buying spree.
For the sake of comparison, $496 million is 0.36% of the Amazon’s latest quarterly revenue of $137.4 billion.
But it’s more complicated than that.
The Seattle tech giant spent $496 million on acquisitions last year, down from $1.2 billion in 2020.
However, the official number that Amazon shopped for according to Dealogic data is $15.7 billion across 29 deals. The number was cited in a GeekWire report.
However, Amazon’s announced merger and acquisition deals aren’t accounted for as expenses until the deal has closed which is subject to regulatory and shareholders approvals.
In March 2021, Amazon’s Prime Video won the right to carry Thursday night NFL football games for 10 years, starting in 2023.
While the terms of this deal were not disclosed, however, published reports have put the overall value of the NFL deals with Amazon and other broadcast and media networks at over $100 billion.
In May, last year, Amazon announced it would be buying MGM Studios for $8.45 billion, as the retail/technology colossus continues to expand in the entertainment industry. It’s the second largest purchase in Amazon history, after its $13.7 billion buyout of Whole Foods four years ago.
The proposed deal is currently under review by the federal trade commission.
Amazon Pales in Comparison to Its Neighbor Microsoft
The MGM deal gives Amazon an opportunity to boost its Prime business, which now counts more than 200 million members.
Amazon will use the purchase to grow its film and TV division, Amazon Studios. Privately-held MGM owns 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows. For movies, the roster includes the James Bond catalog, “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Fargo.” As far as TV shows, there’s “Shark Tank,” “Survivor” and “The Real Housewives.”
Amazon is competing with the likes of Netflix (NFLX) – Get Netflix, Inc. Report, Disney (DIS) – Get Walt Disney Company Report and others to win eyeballs for video content, especially streaming content.
Amazon’s MGM deal pales in comparison to its Washington State rival Microsoft’s (MSFT) – Get Microsoft Corporation Report $68.7 billion proposed bid to buy ‘Call of Duty’ maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI) – Get Activision Blizzard, Inc. Report, reported last month.
To be sure, Activision Blizzard, is in a precarious position and shrouded under controversy as the gaming publisher is facing a sexual-harassment lawsuit and other workplace issues.
“This represents Microsoft’s largest acquisition ever and the largest M&A deal (Dell/EMC $67 billion) in tech history,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote of the deal.
Microsoft’s Activision buy could take gaming M&A to the next level, wrote Real Money columnist Kevin Curran.
In 2020, Amazon agreed to buy California-based self-driving startup Zoox in a deal reported to be worth more than $1 billion that would accelerate the e-commerce giant’s reach into autonomous-vehicle technology and implementation in either ride-hailing or its delivery network.
In 2019, Amazon acquired a 49% stake in a unit of India’s Future Group which owns 7.3% of Future Retail, giving the U.S.-based company a 3.58% stake in the retailer which operates more than 1,500 stores in the country.
In 2017, Amazon bought Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, in what has been its biggest ever deal so far.
