The instant grocery delivery market is headed toward consolidation: The extremely high cost of 15-minute delivery in the US has startups built on the promise pivoting to longer delivery times and other services.

Dying private practices get a lifeline: PatientPop and Kareo are merging to forman all-in-one platform to help practices grow, optimize revenues, and keep up with innovation—something that could save struggling practices and even facilitate consolidation.

ING is closing its PFM app Yolt to focus on B2B open banking platform YTS, a welcomed focus as other players bet on consolidation.

The combined entity aims to operate as a one-stop shop for the financial needs of SMBs, and the acquisition points toward potential consolidation in the space as competition stiffens.

Matter differs from previous smart home consolidation efforts in that it actually has wide-ranging industry support. In addition to the bigger players, smaller participants like Roku, Ecobee, Wyze, and iRobot are also part of the effort. The big takeaway: We may finally be seeing progress in smart home device standardization, a necessary step to achieve the seamlessly integrated smart home.

Consolidation helps Samsung enforce friction-free co-development of products and services that work better together, ostensibly to facilitate its entry into a wider services and subscriptions model.

The bigger picture: Fintech consolidations are escalating as winners break away from the pack and seek to build a larger range of products. After 2020’s meteoric growth, Rocket’s 3Q net income fell 53% from a year ago, and its public market price has languished. Its IPO listed below its target price range, suggesting investors didn’t see it as part of the higher-flying tech cohort.

Instead, companies like it could increase consolidation this year to remain attractive to clients. For context, in 2014, Castlight Health was one of the first digital health companies to take the public leap. Since then, the pandemic-induced demand for virtual care services has convinced companies like Amwell and Oak Street Health to go public in order to rapidly scale, too.

Wave after wave of consolidation and the dominance of app stores resulted in the duopoly we have today. “Apple and Google are the main players when it comes to choosing a phone. But it can be easy to forget that they set all the rules too—from determining which apps are available on their app stores to making it difficult for us to switch to alternative browsers on our phones,” Coscelli said.

Looking forward: India and other foreign markets may not be a one-size-fits-all for US-based streamers feeling the squeeze, and consolidation may be inevitable. The challenges services face in entering India are many, and asmore competitors begin to bring their content overseas, the market may eventually close as it’s doing back home.

The challenge: The games industry is undergoing a tidal wave of consolidation, with large players like Microsoft, Tencent, and others purchasing game studios with increasing regularity.

Article: New Amwell data proves the future of telehealth will be colored with consolidation.

More money + more choices = more consolidation. With so much money chasing so many digital health startups, financial reckonings are on the horizon. Telehealth is ripe for consolidation. The service is now a must-have feature for most healthcare providers, from hospitals to retail pharmacies, to attract consumers who appreciate the convenience.

This is unfolding just as Big Tech is expanding to own internet infrastructure as well as last-mile 5G networks, indicating even more consolidation of services under monolithic tech companies. The aging internet infrastructure is its own problem. The pandemic accelerated the remote work reality and exposed the weakness of overloading internet networks and infrastructure.

II: There has been some debate over whether practice consolidation helps or hurts healthcare. Why should independent practices remain as such? FM: We now know that [physician practice] consolidation increases cost. It does not improve quality, it does not improve coordination, it does not improve patient experience, and it certainly doesn't increase patient choice.

The snowballing number of streaming services will prompt consolidation, which will concentrate advertisers’ audiences. Increasing retransmission and affiliate fees will restrict the growth of virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs). This will reduce cord-cutting resistance and negatively impact the effectiveness of TV’s reach.

eMarketer principal analyst Nicole Perrin hosts a new “Behind the Numbers” show called “The Ad Platform,” a platform to discuss all things advertising. In the first episode, Perrin sits with vice president of forecasting Monica Peart and forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom to discuss US digital advertisers’ budgets. Consolidation is the name of the game as publishers continue to devote dollars to the duopoly and the new behemoth in town.

eMarketer principal analyst Lauren Fisher joins fellow principal analyst Nicole Perrin to talk about recent coverage from The Wall Street Journal about how Google came to have the biggest digital ad business. Then they discuss ad tech consolidation and a handful of recent video-focused deals, including Roku’s acquisition of DSP dataxu and Xandr’s purchase of SSP Clypd.