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Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple aquisitions: We are buying a company every other month, continue to look at large companies

During Apple CEO Tim Cook’s scheduled presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this morning, the executive was asked about the company’s strategy acquisition.

While noting that Apple continues to acquire a company approximately every other month, Cook also said that Apple has looked at acquiring larger companies. We can only guess what companies Cook is referring to, but he did say Apple would continue to look at acquiring larger companies.

Cook’s full quote on acquisition strategy and larger acquisitions is below:

Look at the last three years. We’ve averaged about an acquisition every other month. The kind of companies that we’ve purchased have been companies that either have really smart people and or IP. Generally speaking, in many cases, we’ve taken something that their working on and moved the skills to work on something else. We bought a company called ‘PA Semi’ a couple years ago. We were in the process of creating the engines in [iOS devices]. These were an incredible group of guys. We’ve done many many others that are similar in nature to that. We will do more of those. We’ really like to control the primary technology. In terms of large acquisitions… we have looked at large companies. In each case, it didn’t pass our test for various reasons. We will look again, I’m sure we will. I think we have the management talent and depth to do it. We don’t feel pressure to acquire revenue…we want to make great products. Cash is not burning a hole in our pocket.

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Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.