A series of high-profile acquisitions means that the tech scoter has hit $174.4 billion during 2014, up from $113 billion the previous year.
The most recent deal to tip the scales is Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch, a social video platform for computer games fans set up in 2011 and grown off the back of $35 million worth of venture capital.
Figures revealed by Thomson Reuters shows that 2014 so far has posted a 54 per cent increase in activity in the sector compared with the same period last year. The technology market, its says, accounts for 7.6 per cent of total worldwide M&A so far this year.
The largest tech acquisition of 2014 is the $19.5 billion bid for messaging app WhatsApp by social media platform Facebook in February.
The US has contributed the lions’ share of deal value, at $106 billion, followed by China ($25 billion), South Korea ($8 billion) and the UK ($5 billion).
From a quiet post-recession period in 2009 and 2010 when deal values and volumes dropped considerable, large technology firms have begun to utilise large stores of capital in efforts to acquire customers, integrate new technologies and access different markets.
The most targeted sectors for year-to-date 2014 outside of the high technology sector are healthcare (15.7 per cent market share), energy and power (11.7 per cent) and media and entertainment (11.3 per cent). The industry total has reached $2.3 trillion, a 67 per cent upward change over the same period in 2013.
