Global merger and acquisition deals are dominated by Internet of Things

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Global merger and acquisition deals are dominated by Internet of Things - EY

The latest trend reports on mergers and acquisitions showed that 1,069 deals involving IoT platforms went through in the third quarter of 2015. The review was conducted by Ernst & Young (EY).

We are going to see at least 50 billion - according to tech experts- of devices connected to each other by 2020 and these devices will need IoT platforms to manage it.

The biggest deals in terms of money exchanged were driven by the IoT, big data analytics and payment and financial services technologies.

Forbes reports that IoT deals topped the chart in average, value per deal in the third quarter averaging about $1.2 billion.

Four top non-tech buyers i.e. Honeywell, Audi/BMW/Daimler, Liberty Interactive and McGraw Hill Financial acquired the top value IoT, mobility and security deals.

Non-tech buyers have secured disclosed-value deals in the likes of USD47.1 billion, nearly double in value of what was acquired in 2014.

In the third quarter of 2015, companies involved in M&As of IoT valued more than USD5 billion included Carlyle Group-GICPrivate-Veritas Information, Honeywell-Elster Grp deals.

Notable acquisitions in the third quarter of 2015 involving IoT include the acquisition of Atmel by Dialog Semiconductor for USD4.6billion.

In Mobile World Dialog reportedly viewed the deal to "result in a fast growing and innovative powerhouse, supporting mobile power, IoT and automotive customers."

Another acquisition of a young IoT platform in the third quarter of 2015 was that of Mformation by Alcatel-Lucent.

Bhaskar Gorti, president of Alcatel-Lucent's IP Platforms told the Telecoms how important the deal was considering the ever-increasing interconnection of people's social and economic lives.

"We need to ensure that these devices and the networks they navigate are secure, reliable and efficient", he said.

"Mformation's cloud-enabled IoT platform will enable our customers to rapidly deploy IoT services that can be trusted and managed efficiently", Gorti added.