Should Apple Or Google Buy Twitter?

Twitter Inc TWTR on Tuesday was rumored to be open to a buyout from Google Inc GOOG or Facebook Inc FB.

This isn't the first time Twitter was thought to be for sale, but will it be the last?

"The issue with Twitter is, is it a mainstream product or not? I think Google probably looks at that very closely," B. Riley analyst Sameet Sinha told Benzinga. "'Cause the idea is -- can we continue to drive growth and active users and usage per user? Twitter might have a huge number of users, but it's not growing."

Related Link: Will Facebook And Twitter Takeover Google's Ad Business?

What About Apple?

Twitter expert Sean Udall commented on the value Apple Inc. AAPL would gain from buying the social media company.

"With Apple, the implications are incredibly vast," Udall, who serves as the CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and is the author of The TechStrat Report, told Benzinga. "What Apple could do with Twitter's mobile platform distribution, reach and further enhance rich geolocation targeting/delivery. Then you throw in all the big data intelligence gleaned from the Twitter data feed and the possibilities are too numerous to mention."

Udall said that there is "obviously" a financial/revenue growth driver component here, adding that Twitter would become a "nice source of revenue growth" for Apple. He thinks Twitter could grow larger as an Apple subsidiary than it could on its own.

"Think of having 'Twitter Inside' if/when Apple finally launches its own branded search," Udall added. "Thus, I believe buying Twitter would be at least as good of use of cash (if not better) than Apple buying its own stock at current prices."

Costly Gains

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry doesn't think that any of these firms should or will consider acquiring Twitter.

"Apple's focus is always about privacy, hardware, software," Chowdhry told Benzinga. "Apple, instead of buying Twitter for $20+ billion, they are better off buying Tesla. I don't think Apple has any interest in buying Twitter."

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.