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Click on the links for the respective acquisition announcements.
Note that while these M&A transactions were announced in 2022, some of them might have closed earlier.
Click here for a description of the M&A Driver categories.
7 of the 14 acquisitions this year occurred in the photo printing space – a mature space that centers around the production and shipping of physical goods and has had built-in incentives to consolidate this year:
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With rising shipping costs in much of 2022 and greater pressure to reduce one’s carbon footprint, having a broader geographic representation that reduces the shipping-to-customer distance, emissions, costs and delivery time has been an important incentive to acquire vendors in complementary geos.
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Since long tail photo print products are on the rise, acquiring photo print manufacturers who are capable of manufacturing print product types that complement one’s own offering has been another driver of acquisitions in the photo printing space.
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In the last few years ownership of quite a few of the major photo print product vendors has transitioned to PE firms – and achieving economies of scale and industry dominance through consolidation is straight out of their playbook.
The other 7 acquisitions listed here are of companies that innovate in the production and consumption of digital photos and/or videos, with the main use cases: ecommerce enablement through visuals (a thriving area, as we discussed in our “Empowering Shopping” panel at Visual 1st), stock video, and marketplaces.
In most cases these acquisitions have occurred in growing markets in which the acquirer felt the need to be able to offer more of a complete product in order to fully reap the benefits of these growing markets (Product Diversification).
Which leaves us with the blue-skying question, best to be consumed with some level of fortified eggnog or glühwein this time of year: Which market segments were not (much) targeted for acquisition in 2022, and which segments can we expect to see more acquisitions in 2023?
Market segments with no/little acquisition activities in 2022:
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Camera companies (as has been in the past, the larger camera players focus on internal development rather than acquisitions of other camera companies)
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Visual generative AI companies (as this field is so new, it’s highly risky to now already bet one's dollars on who’ll be the winners)
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Photo and video app developers (social media networks have mostly caught up by developing their own photo & video app technologies + are less willing to pay for “eyeballs” in the current challenging advertising climate)
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B2C photo print app developers (this industry is still catching its breath, having just crawled out of the pandemic; the Albelli – Photobox merger is a notable exception).
Market segments where I expect so see more acquisition activities in 2023:
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Visual ecommerce enablers (more and more ecommerce vendors are starting to see the benefits of being able to offer more effective/faster/cheaper/more scalable photo & video creation solutions)
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Visual generative AI companies (I assume the initial launching dust will settle mid-2023, thus making it safer at that time to bet on who’ll be the ones worth acquiring)
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Friend-based photosharing startups (consumers are rediscovering the joys of authentic photo sharing through friend and family solutions at a time when the original photosharing networks have turned into commerce-focused publishing networks)
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B2C photo print 2.0 app developers (there is no lack of innovative approaches in this space – a focus of our upcoming March 15 Visual 1st Spotlight. With hopefully market uncertainties diminished in a post-pandemic area, I expect more acquisitions to occur of some of these innovators by incumbents who would benefit from the resulting product or geo diversification, market share gains and economies of scale).
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