Apple reported to be buying Twitter

Tue, 5 May 2009

Apple is in late stage negotiations to buy micro-blogging service Twitter according to reports out of the US.

The software giant is said to be keen on acquiring the site, which claims 25m users, to sit with its iPhone offering.

Speculation is mounting that Apple will announced the acquisition next month at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Google, Facebook and Microsoft have all been named in the past as attempting to acquire the site, with a $500m (£331m) offer from Facebook said to have been turned down by Twitter investors.

In its last funding based valuation, Twitter’s worth was put at $250m (£165m), but spikes in traffic have led to price tags of up to $700m (£464).