Apple isn’t in talks with Twitter about investing in the operator of a micro-blogging service, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The companies were in discussions more than a year ago and talks ended without an agreement, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the deliberations were private.
The two had held talks in recent months about Apple making an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the New York Times reported last Friday. The deal would have valued Twitter at more than $10 billion (€8 billion), it said.
Representatives from Cupertino, California-based Apple and San Francisco-based Twitter declined to comment. Twitter, while still smaller than online competitors Google and Facebook expects to generate at least $1 billion in sales in 2014, sources have said.
Researchers at EMarketer have said that in 2014 Twitter’s advertising sales, which account for almost all its revenue, will rise to $540 million from $139.5 million last year. The company doesn’t release sales figures.
Twitter has stepped up a campaign to induce marketers to devote more of their advertising budgets to its service, which lets users post messages of no more than 140 characters to followers.
Twitter, which unveiled its first advertising offering in 2010, has recently expanded mobile-advertising services.
Apple’s latest version of the operating system for Mac desktops and notebooks, called Mountain Lion, adds direct support for Twitter, making it easier for users to share their comments and content directly.
Apple’s profit and sales fell short of analysts’ projections for only the second time since 2003 as customers held off on iPhone purchases while waiting for a new model to be introduced later in the year. Net income climbed 21 per cent to $8.82 billion, or $9.32 a share, in the period that ended June 30, Apple said . Sales rose 23 per cent to $35 billion.
Analysts had predicted profit of $10.37 a share on revenues of $37.2 billion, the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Apple outgrew its closest technology-industry peers, but the company’s sales climbed at the slowest pace since mid-2009.
