IT services spending

A new report from PwC shows a drop in the number of M&As in 2015 from the year before, but IT services deals surged last year.

278 tech industry M&A deals closed last year, totaling $147.7 billion in value, down from 289 transactions totaling $164.8 billion in value in 2014.

IT services deals also surged in 2015, with 67 M&A transactions valued at $35.6 billion. That’s up from 38 deals worth $16.6 billion the year before.

There were 105 software sector deals last year, up from 90 in 2014. However, the value of those deals declined from $43.9 billion to $34.9 billion within that period.

There were 37 Internet deals worth $20.8 billion in 2015, down from 77 mergers valued at $49.8 billion the year before.

The hardware sector saw 37 deals totaling $18.5 billion last year, down from 55 M&A closings worth $37 billion in 2014.

Last year, there were 32 M&A deals in the semiconductor sector worth $38 billion, up from 29 transactions worth $17.4 billion the year before.

The biggest deal of 2015 totaled $16.7 billion—the amount Intel paid to acquire programmable logic device vendor Altera.

Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors reduced its number of top competitors by one, acquiring U.S.-based Freescale, a design, research and development organization, for $11.9 billion.

Looking to boost its presence in integrated software and processing solutions, Fidelity National Information Services closed on a $9.1 billion deal to acquire SunGard, a provider of integrated software and processing solutions.

Many companies struggle with big data demands, creating an opportunity that Permira Advisers and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board concluded for $5.3 billion in acquiring Informatica, an enterprise data integration software and services provider.

Here’s another big deal for big data, as Intercontinental Exchange acquired Interactive Data Corp.—which specializes in market data and analytics solutions in the financial sector—for $5.2 billion.