25 October 2016

Twitter, the popular but loss-making micro-blogging service, is planning to lay off around 300 people, or 8 percent of its workforce, as the company faces an uncertain future.

Earlier this month, the company hired bankers to explore acquisition offers. Technology and media companies including Salesforce.com Inc, Walt Disney Co and Alphabet Inc's Google looked at the company but ultimately passed on buying it. Read more here.

Part of the reason potential buyers have backed off could be the fact advertising agencies are for the first time turning to Instagram more frequently than Twitter for social media ad campaigns, according to a Reuters report in June. Read more here.

New statistics released this week by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in the United Arab Emirates also showed that smartphone and fixed Internet users made 24 billion visits to social networking websites during the period April 1 to June 30 this year. Visits to Facebook accounted for 90.39 percent of total visits to social networking sites, followed by Twitter with 5.18 percent of visits, then LinkedIn, MySpace, and Maktoob. Read more here.

The company has a market cap of about $12.76 billion, but annual losses of around $400 million a year. Its next earnings announcement will be on Thursday, October 27.

© Express 2016