Twitter eyes South Africa in IPO filing
Social network Twitter says that its user base in many international markets, including South Africa, is growing at a faster rate than in the United States.
The online messaging service publicly filed its IPO documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday (3 October, 2013).
Twitter said it had 218.3 million average MAUs (monthly average users) in the three months ended June 30, 2013, which was a 44% increase from 151.4 million average MAUs in the three months ended June 30, 2012.
“We have experienced significant growth in our number of users over the last several years. In general, a higher proportion of Internet users in the United States uses Twitter than Internet users in other countries.”
“Accordingly, in the future we expect our user growth rate in certain international markets, such as Argentina, France, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, to continue to be higher than our user growth rate in the United States,” Twitter said in its filing.
Research conducted by World Wide Worx and Fuseware, on the state of social media in South Africa, revealed that Twitter in South Africa grew as much as 129% between August 2012 and 2013.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx said that South Africans post 54 million tweets per month, 85% of which are from mobile devices.
He said that Twitter users in South Africa climbed to 5.5-million in 2013, from 2.43-million in 2012.
Twitter said it intends to invest in its international operations in order to expand its user base and advertiser base and increase engagement and monetization internationally.
In the three months ended June 30, 2013, Twitter reported 169.1 million average MAUs internationally, compared to 49.2 million average MAUs in the United States.
In the first public disclosure of its financial results, Twitter reported that revenue almost tripled to $316.9 million in 2012. In the first half of 2013, it posted revenue of $253.6 million – but it also reported a loss of $69.3 million.
“Our financial performance has been and will continue to be significantly determined by our success in growing the number of users and increasing their overall level of engagement on our platform as well as the number of ad engagements,” Twitter said.
More news on Twitter
SA social media stats revealed
Twitter to raise $1 billion in IPO
Twitter: from tiny tweets to towering tank
Loading ...