Connector Industry Mergers and Acquisitions 1950s-2024
Mergers and acquisitions have dramatically reshaped the connector industry. An important new report documents the evolution of these companies and their impact on the greater electronics ecosystem.
Mergers and acquisitions, along with product discontinuations, have had a dramatic effect on the connector industry over the last 40 years, and specifically over the last two and one-half decades. Companies have made strategic moves to acquire product lines, customer bases, regional operations, and expertise. These include acquisitions by manufacturers, distributors, and private equity companies. Companies acquired include manufacturers of connectors, cable, and wire; manufacturers who produce cable assemblies or wire harnesses; distributors that focus on connectors as part of their product offering; and more recently, companies that manufacture adjacent technologies such as sensors, antennas, optical components, and other capabilities.
Since its founding in 1985, Bishop & Associates has tracked acquisitions in the connector industry and maintains a deep knowledge base of interconnect industry history. In a new report, History of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Connector Industry – Shrinking Footprints: Connector Industry Consolidation 1950s-2024, Bishop explores the history of mergers and acquisitions and their role in shaping today’s electronics world, with a breakdown of significant moves by year, type of company acquired and acquiring, valuation, and technology or product type acquired.
The report includes a timeline that goes back to 1954, when Deutsch acquired Monowatt, GE’s connector division, through the decades to the present day, an era in which Amphenol has been a dominant acquiring force. (Deutsch appears on the timeline multiple times before it too is acquired by TE Connectivity in 2012.) In addition to this important historical record of the industry’s activities and priorities over the past seven decades, the report offers several interesting analyses.
The fortunes of the industry can also be evaluated through the perspective of merger and acquisition activities. The report examines the impact these moves have on the rankings and performance of key companies, and observes that during economic downturns, acquisition activities slowed down. Other observations found a correlation between acquisitions and industry rankings. For example, in a comparison between the top 50 connector manufacturers in 1999 and the top 50 connector manufacturers of 2023, 44% of the original group have had all or a portion of their product offering acquired by another manufacturer. And this number doesn’t include the few that have been acquired by private equity companies or the fact that many of those listed in 1999 were created from acquisitions prior to that.
Acquisitions also offer insights into the global changes that have also shaped the industry. For instance, in 1995, five of the top 100 manufacturers had a base of origin in the Asia Pacific region and China. In 2023, 29 of the 100 companies had a base of origin of either Asia Pacific or China.
The report also takes a preliminary look at 2024. Through September of 2024, Bishop has recorded a total of 12 acquisitions, 10 of them by manufacturers.
Visit Bishop & Associates to learn more about History of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Connector Industry – Shrinking Footprints: Connector Industry Consolidation 1950s-2024, as well as other recent connector industry reports.
This content is available to subscribers of Connector Supplier through a special partnership with Bishop & Associates. No part of this article may be used without the permission of Bishop & Associates Inc. The Bishop Report publishes monthly updates about the performance of the connector industry and key industry topics. Subscribe to the Bishop Report here. Contact us at [email protected] or 630.443.2702.
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