全球科技產業併購決策之探索研究

Abstract

The explosive global population and the unprecedented growth of urbanization challenge cities’ sustainability and efficiency. Technology is recognized as an essential element to resolve the issues for future inhabitation. While technology is highly leveraged to improve citizens’ daily life, a city is transformed into a smart city. This digital transformation has been disrupting several related industries across the board and changing their competitive dynamics. This thesis is to discuss how the concept and vision of smart city drive major global players to aggressively reconfigure their business portfolios, especially through merging or acquiring target firms in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. To facilitate research exploration, three cases (Qualcomm-NXP acquisition, Broadcom-Qualcomm proposal, and SoftBank-ARM acquisition) are purposely identified for detailed examination on the strategic motivations of engaging merger and acquisition (M&A) and the consequent influences on competitive landscape. After analyzing public information, this research discovers that the acquiring firms are faced with mature core businesses, so they are attracted by the target firms’ growth potential for the emerging smart city market. In addition to growth, the acquiring firms also seek for value creation. By eliminating boundaries between firms and consolidating resources, the shared vision of smart city can be realized more efficiently. As for the influences on competitive landscape, these M&A measures disturb the original equilibrium of competition, more M&As might be induced until new equilibrium is achieved. Higher market power of the combined companies will cause redistribution of the profit pools and threaten operations of foundries and other IC design firms. To respond to the dramatic changes of competition, foundries have to search for breakthroughs on nanometer fabrication technologies. Other IC design firms should fortify intellectual property portfolios, deliver low-cost and low-power products, or reposition themselves as total solution integrators for the surging smart city industry.