The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region saw a slight 1.4% decline in deal activity, with a total of 14,621 mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity, and venture financing deals in 2024 compared to the 14,829 deals announced during the previous year. Despite this dip, APAC outperformed other regions, reveals GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “While deal volume declined across all regions in 2024, APAC stood out with a relatively modest decrease. Unlike North America and South & Central America, which experienced double-digit declines, APAC's decline was the smallest among all regions, reflecting its comparatively stronger performance in a challenging global market.”
An analysis of GlobalData's Deals Database revealed that North America and South and Central America saw their respective deal volume fall by 10.6% and 15.2% YoY in 2024, whereas Europe and Middle East and Africa witnessed decline in deal volume by 6.7% and 4.7%, respectively.
Bose adds: “The relatively better performance of the APAC region can be attributed to growth in some of the key markets, which helped counterbalance declines in other significant markets across the region.”
For instance, India, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Thailand experienced improvement in deal volume by 13.7%, 30.2%, 6.7%, 8.2% and 6.5%, respectively, during 2024 compared to the previous year.
On the other hand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and New Zealand witnessed their respective deal volume decline by 20.8%, 13%, 10.6%, 3.6%, 33.7% and 8.2% in 2024 compared to 2023.
Meanwhile, the trend across different deal types also remained a mixed bag for the APAC region. While M&A deals volume grew by 5.9% during 2024 over 2023, the number of private equity and venture financing deals declined by 8.8%, and 8.9% YoY, respectively.
Bose concludes: “APAC’s ability to outpace other regions reflects the region's dynamic and evolving market landscape. The performance of key markets such as India and Japan suggest that targeted growth strategies and regional resilience continue to offer significant opportunities for investors and businesses looking to navigate a challenging global environment.”
