On Apple Inc. Acquisitions: Out Of 15 Firms In 2015, Six Are Unnamed

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BY Judith Aparri Nov 11, 2015 10:22 PM EST

Apple Inc. acquisitions in 2015 involve 15 companies. It has bought 15 companies for the fiscal year 2015 which ended in September as acquisitions are important "to enhance and accelerate our roadmap for products and services," stated CEO Tim Cook during a quarterly earnings call.

Out of 15 Apple Inc. acquisitions, only nine companies were identified and the rest were not. They include Camel Audio, Semetric, FoundationDB, Lin X, Coherent Navigation, Metaio, Mapsense, VocalIQ and Perceptio. Not disclosing the other six is a significant departure from the usual highlighted acquisitions of other tech companies.

As for the identities of the acquired firms, Cook was heard saying they will try to be quiet though at times, it seems impossible. Identifying and wooing potential firms to be acquired can be competitive and the firms involved may want to remain private as they may have several tech firms wooing them.

Apple was on a buying spree when it bought the last few companies, said Business Insider.

In the artificial intelligence race, it bought Perceptio, a firm which makes image-recognition tech for smartphones. Perceptio developed "deep learning" to identify image independently, sans the external libraries.

Deep learning is important for tech companies like Apple to enhance their digital assistants for example. It is a specialized AI field that allows machines to identify patterns and learn on their own. Aside from enhancing Siri, Apple can use AI to help build its self-driving car, which is reportedly coming in 2019. Another AI company Apple Inc. now owns is VocalIQ which helps computers understand human speech.

Aside from Apple Inc. acquisitions, it is noteworthy that in fiscal 2015, Apple Inc. hired 17,400 full-time employees. Such increase is 5,000 more hired in 2014. It now directly employs over 110,000 people. It opened 26 retail stores that has 100 employees on average, according to AppleInsider.

The Cupertino company also acquired a big part of itself by buying back its own stocks, expanding its buyback spending to $104 billion since 2012. It allocates $36 billion for stock buybacks through March 2017.