It appears as though Twitter has caught the eye of the Saudi Prince, Alwalled bin Talal, as he and his firm, Kingdom Holding Co. invest $300 million, reportedly buying him a three to four per cent stake in the twitting business.
Prince Alwaleed specialises in media investments, holding a seven per cent stake in the news giant, News Corp. along with shares in many other Arab and international media firms. The Prince's company also holds stakes in Apple, eBay, AOL, Motorola, Compaq and Amazon.
According to the Prince, negotiations had been ongoing with Twitter for several months and that the "investment in Twitter reaffirms their[our] ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact." Executive director of private equity and international investments at Kingdom Holding, Ahmed Halawani, stated "Social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend."
We wonder if this decision was at all brought about by the use of Twitter during the recent Arab uprisings, certainly studies suggest that the Arabic language is the fastest growing on Twitter, with an increase of 2200 per cent observed over the past year, though still only accounting for one per cent of the total number of twits.
Given Twitter's modest 2010 revenue of $140 million, a summer valuation placing the firm at $8 billion and now Kingdom Holding's investment suggesting a perceived worth of $10 billion, it appears as though there's a lot of confidence for growth in the firm, we wonder if Twitter will be able to live up to expectations.
