Our graphic shows every billion-dollar acquisition made by Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, from Alibaba’s acquisition of logistics giant Cainiao to Tencent's bet on gaming company Supercell.
With a combined $1T+ market cap, China’s big tech trio — Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT) — have formidable influence over the digital economy.
Search engine Baidu reportedly controls around 70% of the search market in China; e-commerce giant Alibaba accounts for half of all online retail sales in China; and gaming and internet giant Tencent is one of the world’s largest game publishers.
However, these 3 tech titans have also moved to expand beyond their core businesses, snapping up 158 companies over the last 2 decades across industries like autonomous driving and online food delivery.
Similarly, FAMGA (Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple) has also cut big checks — even amid Covid-19 — to grow their reach. We visualize FAMGA’s biggest acquisitions in this post.
Using CB Insights M&A data, we look at BAT’s billion-dollar acquisitions below.
Please click to enlarge.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Collectively, there have been 14 billion-dollar acquisitions by Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent to date.
- With 11 billion-dollar deals under its belt, Alibaba is by far the most active big spender out of the 3 giants. Tencent has inked 2 billion-dollar acquisitions, while Baidu has closed 1.
- The largest acquisition (by company valuation) on our timeline is Alibaba’s purchase of logistics giant Cainiao, which valued the company at $20B. Alibaba first acquired a majority stake in Cainiao in 2017, but upped its stake with an additional $3.3B investment 2 years later at an even higher valuation of $27.5B.
- Rounding out the top 3 acquisitions are video game developer Supercell, which Tencent purchased from SoftBank in 2016, and online food delivery platform Ele.me, which was acquired by Alibaba in 2018.
- Baidu’s purchase of Android app distributor 91 Wireless in 2013 was the first $1B+ buy from the trio.
- The most recent billion-dollar acquisition was Alibaba’s $1.8B acquisition of cross-border e-commerce platform Kaola. Alibaba announced at the time that it would integrate the platform with Alibaba’s own online retail arm, Tmall.
- 2019 tied with 2016 and 2014 for the most active year for $1B+ purchases, with 3 acquisitions each.
| Company | Acquirer | Max Valuation ($B) |
| Cainiao | Alibaba Group | 20 |
| Supercell | Tencent Holdings | 10.2 |
| Ele.me | Alibaba Group | 9.5 |
| Youku Tudou | Alibaba Group | 4.8 |
| UCBrowser | Alibaba Group | 4.7 |
| China Music Corp | Tencent Holdings | 2.7 |
| 91 Wireless | Baidu | 1.9 |
| Kaola | Alibaba Group | 1.8 |
| AutoNavi | Alibaba Group | 1.6 |
| Lazada | Alibaba Group | 1.5 |
| iKang Healthcare Group | Alibaba Group | 1.4 |
| Alibaba Pictures Group | Alibaba Group | 1.3 |
| Amap | Alibaba Group | 1.1 |
| Koubei | Alibaba Group | 1 |
For more on tech giants, check out our infographic visualizing FAMGA’s billion-dollar acquisitions.
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