Twitter is becoming a controversial tech company with Salesforce.com being the last to decline to acquire the micro-blogging giant. This could, however, open the door for Japanese telecom giant SoftBank, which has stated interest in the past and has enough money and incentives to buy the 140-character social media platform, notes Forbes contributor Marc Prosser.
No bidders left
Twitter’s 2015 revenue was $2.21 billion, but it is losing money at a rate of about $100 million per quarter. In addition, the social network is spending a big sum on “traffic acquisition,” and its share price graph does not look good for investors.
Thus, Twitter began approaching many big tech companies about a month ago for a possible merger or sale. Tech companies like Google and Microsoft and media giant Disney reportedly took a good look at the social network but eventually turned their back on the deal. Now reported bidder Salesforce has also joined the list of “not interested” companies.
Twitter is not only struggling to make sufficient money and add users, but it is also finding it difficult to compete with other social media platforms. Facebook rules all parts of the world except China and Russia, and Instagram is overthrowing the micro-blogging site from the number 2 spot in several countries.
Why could SoftBank acquire Twitter?
Twitter is even bigger than Facebook in Japan. In comparison to Facebook’s 25 million active users, around 35 million users use the micro-blogging at least once a month in Japan. The fact that the social network is so popular in Japan, SoftBank’s home market, could be one reason why the telecom giant is interested, and the main reason is data, Prosser believes. Twitter’s 140-character limit has been slammed by many, but in Japan, it’s a bit different, he explains.
“Japan uses three alphabets. One of them is Kanji, where a single character can represent a whole word. That means that a single Japanese tweet can hold about as much data (or information, if you’re feeling generous) as the beginning of this article, until the ‘Japan loves Twitter’ sub-header,” says Prosser.
All this data can be used by Softbank to better its other business areas
With no bidders, Twitter’s future is uncertain with many even discussing the service as if it is on death’s door. SoftBank’s entry to the scene, however, could make things a bit easier for the micro-blogging giant.
