Tim Cook, Apple: „we acquire a company on average, every two to three weeks”

Apple buys a company every two to three weeks on average, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC.

In roughly the last six months alone, Cook said, Apple has bought approximately 20 to 25 companies. Apple often doesn’t announce these deals because the companies are small and Apple is “primarily looking for talent and intellectual property,” Cook told CNBC’s Becky Quick in an interview from Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting over the weekend.

„We’re gonna spend $350 billion in the United States in building new sites. (…) We acquire everything that we need that can fit and has a strategic purpose to it. And so we acquire a company on average, every two to three weeks.”, said Tim Cook.

„We bought probably 20 to 25 companies in the last six months or so. And then, we look at, what do we have leftover? And if we’ve got something leftover, we look at where we can place it. And the top value that we believe we can place it is investing in ourselves and investing in Apple. And so we do that. We’re fortunate in that, when we buy our stock we think that almost 50% of U.S. households own Apple stock, either directly or indirectly through indexes and mutual funds and so forth. And so it helps everybody or helps a large number of people.”, Cook added.

The aggressive acquisition style highlights Apple’s massive purchasing power. In its fiscal second-quarter earnings statement, Apple reported a $225.4 billion cash hoard, making it one of the most cash-rich companies in the world.

Read here the full interview