Through June 30, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft announced 27 acquisitions, up 29% YoY, the fastest pace since 2015, amid antitrust scrutiny
Context & Ripple Effects
The last time this group moved this fast was 2015 — and even then the picture was mixed, with Apple, Facebook, and Google pulling back from their 2014 pace while Microsoft and Amazon kept buying. The first half of 2020 reverses that split: all five are accelerating at once, up 29% year over year, and doing it while antitrust scrutiny of exactly these five companies is building.
What the scrutiny actually targets becomes clearer in hindsight: the FTC later counted 819 unreported $1M+ deals these same companies struck from 2010 to 2019 — patents and acquihires that sit below the thresholds regulators watch. A fast 2020 pace concentrated in small deals is precisely the pattern that report describes.
First-order effects
- Startup founders and their investors regain a liquid exit: with the big five closing deals at the fastest rate since 2015, small teams in AI and adjacent fields — the category where Apple alone bought the most companies globally from 2016 to 2020, per GlobalData's tally — face more bidders right now.
Second-order effects
- Antitrust enforcers get a live test case: if deal volume keeps rising under public scrutiny, the pressure shifts from blocking headline mergers to policing the sub-threshold acquisitions the FTC says went unreported — pushing regulators toward smaller-deal reporting rather than fewer large ones.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Big Tech M&A consolidates into a steady stream of small capability buys that individually clear review but collectively concentrate talent and technology in five firms — the dynamic the FTC's 819-deal count documents and any future threshold reform would have to address.
The trend: Big Tech is absorbing startups faster than antitrust scrutiny can slow it, shifting the battleground from blockbuster mergers to hundreds of small unreported acquisitions.