SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter on Thursday unveiled plans to pump up the globally popular one-to-many messaging service with a $1 billion stock market debut.
The initial public offering (IPO) is expected to be the most sought-after since Facebook in May 2012, a listing that faced numerous glitches on the Nasdaq and which saw the company’s share price slump before recovering this year.
Twitter outlined its plans in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, providing the the first public insights into the San Francisco company that has rocketed to Internet stardom since its launch in 2006.
“Social media is red hot,” said Internet analyst Lou Kerner. “Twitter is front and center benefiting from market enthusiasm for all things social, and remarkably strong metrics.”
In the regulatory filing, Twitter disclosed that it had 218 million active users as of June 30 in a 44 percent increase from the same point a year earlier. It reported that it lost almost $80 million on nearly $317 million in revenue in 2012. Twitter brought in $253.6 million in revenue in the first half of this year, but remained in the red with a loss of about $69 million, the company said in the filing.–AFP