RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, - nephew of Saudi King who earlier this month was declared as the Arab world’s richest business man - announced the purchase of a $300 million stakes in microblogging site Twitter.
According to an emailed statement from Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company; the huge investment in Twitter by the company is part of a drive “to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”
Prince Alwaleed’s stake is equivalent to 3.6% of the Twitter’s total value of $8.4 billion estimated by the analysts in October this year.
Microblogging site Twitter - allows users to send messages called ‘tweets’ of up to 140 characters each – has achieved recently a land mark of 100 million active users who send 250 million tweets per day.
“Social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend,” Ahmed Halawani, executive director of private equity and international investments at Kingdom Holding, said in the same statement.
Arabian Business magazine has rated Prince Alwaleed as the Arab world’s richest business man, with more than $21 billion in wealth in 2011.
Officials of Kingdom Holding, which was pursuing to purchase the shares of Twitter since October, didn’t provide any further details of the deal early Monday. Matt Graves, a Twitter spokesperson, confirmed the deal but refused to comment further.
It is worth-remembering that different online forums and social-networks, like Twitter and Facebook, had played a key role in the on going Arab revolution as the same were extensively used by activists during this year’s Arab uprisings.
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