Twitter has unsealed the documents for its planned initial public offering of stock and says it hopes to raise up to $US1 billion ($A1.07 billion).
The company is also disclosing that it generated $US317 million ($A338.66 million) in revenue in 2012 and that it has more than 215 million active users. That compares with Facebook’s nearly 1.2 billion and LinkedIn’s 240 million.
The company disclosed last month that it had filed confidential IPO papers to start the process of going public.
On Thursday, San Francisco-based Twitter unsealed the papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Twitter’s money making potential has minted the company with an estimated market value of $US10 billion ($A10.68 billion), based on the appraisals of venture capitalists and other early investors.
The IPO could value it higher or lower.
TWITTER, THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON
* Twitter was co-founded by Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey – @biz, @ev and @jack
* Dorsey sent the first tweet on March 21, 2006, from his @jack account: “just setting up my twttr”
* More than 170 billion tweets have since gone out worldwide
* As at 0800 AEST on Thursday, Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) has the most followers with 45,366,914
* He’s followed by Katy Perry (@katyperry) with 44,122,303 and Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) with 40,229,059
* US President Barack Obama (@barackobama) is fourth with 37,501,850
* The average Twitter user has 208 followers and spends 170 minutes on the site every month
* There are more than 200 million active users. Eighty per cent access Twitter on mobile devices
* About 20 million accounts are believed to be fake
* The hashtag (#) feature which groups tweets by subject debuted in August 2007, having been proposed by a user
* In October 2009, Google and Microsoft began integrating tweets into their search products
* In January 2013, Twitter introduced Vine, which enabled users to make and tweet six-second looping videos
* Twitter is based in San Francisco, with employees in New York, Chicago, LA and Washington
* Its payroll exceeds 900
* Prior to Thursday’s IPO announcement, many analysts valued Twitter at around $US10 billion ($A10.68 billion)
* Twitter was incorporated in April 2007.
AFP
