Verizon, another company mentioned in media reports on Friday as a possible suitor, said it did not comment on M&A rumors but that it had not submitted a bid for the company. In fact, Salesforce tried to buy LinkedIn, but was outbid by Microsoft.
Advertisement
In its most recent quarterly earnings statement, Twitter’s revenue missed Wall Street estimates and the revenue forecast for the current quarter of $590 million to $610 million was well below the average analyst estimate of $678.18 million. However, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that the company has “nothing to share” at the moment, which isn’t anything surprising.
CNBC has the scoop, having heard from sources close to the social network that Twitter is in discussions with several tech giants as it attempts to secure the best deal for investors.
A sale would not be a huge surprise as Twitter has been struggling financially for some time, unable to monetise its somewhat limited platform in the same way that other social networks, particularly Facebook, has done. Potential bidders are Salesforce and Google, among others.
Last month, eMarketer said Twitter’s share of United States social network users will decline to 28.1 percent this year and will continue to drop through 2020, as it loses users to Snapchat, Instagram, and messaging apps.
Along with the newspaper, sources revealed to several news outlets, including CNBC and TechCrunch, that Google, Microsoft and Verizon are also discussing a potential acquisition of Twitter. Salesforce shares were down 3.5 percent at $71.99. Salesforce’s Vala Afshar also outlined his own personal views as to why the cloud computing firm would acquire Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and they have been listed below courtesy of his Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) account.
For two years, Twitter has been casting about for ways to attract new users and to become a social media destination on the order of Facebook. The company employs almost 4,000 staff, and turned over $2.21 billion in revenue previous year, with a profit of $521 million.
Advertisement
Twitter has since made a notable move towards video and live streaming partnerships under his leadership.
