雙邊市場中的併購行為對財富效果之影響 -以Google為例

Abstract

網路產業持續演進，越來越多的經營模式開始與網路相關，原本只在傳統報章雜誌刊登廣告的商家也紛紛將廣告轉往網路。其中，搜尋引擎龍頭Google獲利模式單純，並藉由不斷開創與併購推出新服務，進入不同的網路經濟領域，擴展其廣告營收來源，為研究網路經濟一重要標的。然而，其獲利模式不同於一般供應鏈觀念，近年來，關注媒體以及網路經濟的經濟學者，發展出雙邊市場的概念對類似營運模式加以解釋。本研究檢視Google的營運背景以及併購案，並以雙邊市場理論分析其併購動機與目的，將其併購目的分為三類：增加廣告端能力，改進服務以鞏固用戶，以及直接通過併購取得註冊用戶。並檢驗併購宣布期間的異常報酬，研究對於三類不同併購之宣告，市場所產生的反應，以及對股東財富所產生的影響。

實證結果顯示，直接通過併購取得註冊用戶之併購，在短期間有最顯著之正向異常報酬。此與網路相關產業中，常發生之主併公司以高價收購擁有大量使用者之公司的案例相符合，並能對類似行為提出解釋。研究雙邊市場併購的文獻，多以探討經濟效果、福利，以及反托拉斯為主，鮮少有文獻對金融市場之反應與股東財富效果進行研究，本研究結合雙邊市場理論、併購假說，以及實證分析，在經濟理論與模型之外，提供另一個檢視雙邊網路效應存在的管道。

Online Industry is constant evolving, more and more merchants moved their advertisement from newspapers and magazines to the online advertising platform. Among those in the online industry, the largest search engine Google, which has a simple profit model, and keep providing new services to enter different web ecosystem, either by R&D’s or merger activities, provide a testing ground for researching web-economy. However, its profit model is somewhat different from traditional supply chain, in recent years, economists have developed a theory, which is called “Two-sided market” to explain such kind of business model. The study took a view of Google’s merger activity, and used Two-sided market theory to analyze its purpose and motivation, dividing its purpose into three kinds: improve its advertisement capacity, enhance its free services to strengthen its user base, and third, get large user base directly from acquisition. And then examine the abnormal return of Google’s stock during the announcement period; to see what influence the three different kinds of merger has on Google’s stock holder’s wealth.

The empirical result showed that, the merger which can directly get large user base has the most positive abnormal return in the short run. This is consistent with cases that many firms in the online industry acquired company with large user base for high price. Studies’ that discuss merger activity in Two-sided market usually focus on economic effects, welfare and anti-trust, lack of research on financial market reaction, the study combined two-sided market theory, merger hypothesis and empirical study to provide another way to examine two-sided network effects, besides economic theory and model.