Twitter shares spike after buyout rumours

New York, Aug 4 (IANS) Twitter shares surged by over 7 per cent to close at $17.61 on Wednesday following a rumour saying that former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer was buying the micro-blogging website.

There were multiple reports, saying that Ballmer and Saudi Arabia's Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal were getting ready with a bid to buy Twitter.

Last year, Ballmer announced that he had acquired 4 per cent stake in Twitter which has market cap of nearly $12 billion, SiliconBeat reported on Thursday.

Twitter was yet to respond to the rumour.

Earlier, although it added three million users -- one million more that what analysts had expected -- the not-so-promising second quarter earnings results led to the shares of micro-blogging website Twitter tumbling.

The company posted quarterly revenue of $602 million, up 20 per cent year-over-year and reported $107 million GAAP net loss ($0.15 per share) with quarterly non-GAAP net income of $93 million ($0.13 per share).

A year ago, the year-over-year growth was 61 per cent and two years back, it was a whopping 124 per cent.

The average monthly active users (MAUs) were 313 million for the quarter, up 3 per cent compared to 310 million in the previous quarter.

The micro-blogging website was now looking at the video and news streaming space to revive its fortunes.