• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 28, 2013

Across the media, information, marketing, health-care and technology sectors, deal volume in the first half of the year was driven by continued activity in the marketing and interactive services sector.

It accounted for nearly one third of the total deals announced and approximately 25% of transaction value, according to new estimates from Jordan, Edmiston Group.

The mobile media and technology sector increased by 14% in number of deals -- up to 82 transactions -- and rose in overall deal value by 6%, reaching $2.7 billion, in the first half of 2013.

Notable deals in the second quarter included Google’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Waze; LinkedIn’s acquisition of Pulse, a mobile news aggregation start-up, for $90 million; and Facebook’s acquisition of Parse, a provider of cloud-based software developer kits for mobile devices, for a reported $85 million.

Business-to-consumer online media and technology and healthcare information and technology both fared well, with over 100 deals and over $4 billion in value in the first half of the year, the investment bank reports.

The second quarter of 2013 saw six deals with $1 billion or more in value -- after none in the first quarter -- including Salesforce.com’s $2.25 billion acquisition of ExactTarget, Google’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Waze, and Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr.

Overall, however, the number of deals and value declined in the marketing and interactive services sector in the first half of 2013 compared to the first half of 2012. -- by 11% and 17%, respectively,

Yet, the sector continues to be a major driver of M&A activity, with 224 deals accounting for $6.8 billion of value in the first half of 2013, JEGI reports.