Apple Might Buy GoPro, Fitbit or Netflix, or Something Else

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 10:11AM EST · Published Apr 28, 6:40AM EDT

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook said the company will become more aggressive in its acquisitions efforts. It may need that strategy to prop up the trouble with sales of its core products. Apple has $231 billion in cash, marketable short-term investments and long-term marketable securities, along with the ability to raise billions more at extremely low interest rates. That leaves Cook in a position to buy all but the most valuable tech companies in the world. Obviously, he has to choose carefully to make an acquisition that will fit closely with Apple’s current businesses, or take it into an entirely new area of tech.

One of the most ready fits to Apple’s core business is GoPro Inc. (NASDAQ: GPRO) in the market of portable video devices. Its products could become part of Apple’s video products, particularly the iPhone. GoPro’s market cap is $2 billion. The demand for its video cameras has cooled. The Apple brand might reverse that.

Fitbit Inc. (NYSE: FIT) has many of the features, and a level of success, that the Apple Watch lacks. Its market cap is $3.7 billion. Its success is threatened by other smartwatch products, but Apple has the brand and marketing muscle to possibly change that.
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Apple’s foray into video streaming, branded Apple TV, faces tremendous competition from Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). Apple could dominate the sector with a purchase of Netflix, with its market cap of $39 billion. Apple would pick up the dominate movie streaming company, with its huge subscriber base, which has 82 million “members” worldwide, a count that Apple will never reach with its TV product.

Apple could buy any of these — or all three.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.