The Impact of Digital Platform Mergers and Acquisitions on Corporate Innovation

This study examines how 'killer acquisitions' in the digital platform market have impacted innovation performance post-merger. This analysis focuses particularly on M&As among various types of corporate consolidations by digital platforms. It estimates factors influencing the probability of M&A by digital platforms and uses the technological similarity index between the acquiring digital platform and the acquired company as a key explanatory variable. Then, using the technological similarity index, the analysis categorizes the M&A cases involving digital platforms into 'killer acquisitions' and 'non-killer acquisitions' and compares innovation performance by type of acquisition. The analysis focused on identifying "killer acquisitions" by examining the technology similarity index between firms before and after M&As conducted by GAFAM. Killer acquisitions were defined as those with minimal change in the technology similarity index pre- and post-transaction. The study found that killer acquisitions negatively impact innovation, as measured by a significant decline in the number of patent applications from acquired companies, compared to non-killer acquisitions where patent applications tended to increase post-acquisition. These findings highlight the need for methodologies, such as the technological similarity index, to better identify and regulate such anti-competitive acquisitions in the digital platform sector.