Will companies buy a mobile app?

I see a lot of acquisition posts here in terms of web but was curious about mobile apps. Awhile ago Reddit bought the Alien Blue app (the unofficial reddit app) and then afterwards rebranded it as the official Reddit app. Do you think companies still do that or do they prefer to do it in house? One example is maybe Indie Hackers acquiring an Indie Hackers mobile app (since they don't have one) or maybe a current Hacker News acquires a Hacker News app (They have one but it's crap and theres one made by an indie dev that's much better).

Thoughts on this?