Alphabet omitted a section describing acquisitions over the past year in the annual report filed this week to the US Securities and Exchange Commision, meaning any dealmaking wasn’t significant enough to flag to shareholders. New financial results released by Amazon and Meta Thursday showed their own spending on acquisitions also dipped significantly in 2023.
While companies still consider acquisitions, they have in some cases decided that the potential pushback could be too much to bear. One example of that chilling effect played out in 2020, when Meta had won the bidding over Snap and Reddit for TikTok rival Dubsmash, according to three people familiar with the auction. Meta backed off from closing the deal soon after UK regulators started scrutinizing its $315 million purchase of meme-image search engine Giphy, one of the sources says.