Information and communications technology (ICT) sector had a hectic 2010 in terms of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. There were more than 1,900 M&A deals with a total valuation of over $200b in 2010, according to a report by IDC.
The report revealed that the surge in the global economy and IT spending rebounded from the recession of 2008-2009, have contributed towards the increase in M&A activity in the ICT sector.
The majority of M&A deals in 2010 were concentrated in application-related areas, including enterprise applications (586 deals) and Internet applications (421 deals).
However, activity also surged in the infrastructure segment where there were more than 219 deals led by strong interest in security and storage companies.
The research firm said that from a valuation perspective, the telecommunications segment was particularly active in 2010 with seven of the year’s top 10 megadeals involving service provider networks.
The megadeals pertained to CenturyLink’s acquisition of Qwest for $22.4bn and America Movil’s $21bn deal for Telemex, Intel’s $7.7bn deal for McAfee and SAP’s acquisition of Sybase for $5.8bn.
The research firm said that the most active companies on the M&A landscape were Google, which made 27 deals in 2010, followed by AOL and Facebook with 9 deals each.
In addition, the major IT vendors — Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Oracle, and VMware all displayed a renewed appetite for acquisitions, said the report.
IDC emerging technologies research director Dan Yachin said the renewed confidence accompanying the recovery in IT spending helped to make 2010 a turnaround year for technology M&A activity.
"Looking ahead, IDC expects 2011 to be another active year as companies make strategic investments in a variety of critical areas, such as converged infrastructure, mobile content, service creation and enablement, data analytics (and the supporting infrastructure), and pervasive computing," Yachin said.
