Making up 58 per cent of value and 48 per cent of volume of the whole tech, media, and telecom industry during the last year.

The global software and services sector created a total of US$431 billion in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) last year.

According to GlobalData , this made up 58 per cent of the overall deal value of M&As last year worth at least $50 million in the global tech, media, and telecom (TMT) industry, which came to a total of US$754 billion.

Additionally, the software and services segment also had a deal volume of 292, which made up 48 per cent of the TMT industry deal volume.

The overall TMT industry M&A value for this year is a decline from 2021, which was a relatively high figure of US$1.27 trillion from 12,585 deals. 

"For M&A activity in TMT over the past five years, deal activity peaked in Q3 2021 with 283 deals, marking the highest quarterly deal count. While the highest quarterly deal value was recorded in Q4 2020 with deals worth US$331 billion," said Priya Toppo, thematic intelligence analyst at GlobalData. 

As for the other sectors, hardware clocked in at 138 M&As worth US$138 billion, telecom services saw a total of US$54 billion from 46 deals and the collective internet and media grouping saw US$127 billion from 136 M&A deals.

On a regional basis, the Asia Pacific (APAC) area excluding China was responsible for 94 TMT deals with a total value of US$46 billion, making up 6 per cent of the value of global M&A activity last year.

In the lead was the US, making up 69 per cent with US$510 billion, followed by Europe with 18 per cent, or US$136 billion. China, meanwhile, recorded 2 per cent of global activity with US$17 billion.

Broadcom's acquisition of outstanding VMware shares for US$69 billion was the biggest deal in the US, tied with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, also for US$69 billion. Over in Europe, GlobalData noted that several telecom consolidation deals took place in 2022, with the biggest being Orange Espana's merger with MasMovil for US$19 billion.