Twitter plans to raise up to USD 1 bn from IPO

The company said that their S-1 will be filed publicly with the SEC momentarily

Micro-blogging site Twitter has disclosed plans to raise up to $1 billion from its proposed IPO, which the firm plans to utilise for capital expenditure needs, meeting operating expenses among others.

The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2006, said in a tweet yesterday that "Our S-1 will be filed publicly with the SEC momentarily."

S-1 is the initial registration form for new securities required by SEC for public companies.

In filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Twitter said: "We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures.

"We anticipate making capital expenditures in 2013 of approximately $225 million to $275 million, and we may use a portion of the net proceeds to fund our anticipated capital expenditures."

The firm also plans to use a portion of the net proceeds to satisfy its anticipated tax withholding and remittance obligations related to the settlement of the outstanding Pre-2013 RSUs (Restricted Stock Units).

The filing also revealed Twitter's market performance as well as its user base.

The networking site posted a net revenue of $316.93 million last year against $106.31 million in 2011. Its net loss stood at $79.40 million in 2012 against $128.30 million in 2011.

The company said that for the six months ended June 30, 2012 to the six months ended June 30, 2013, revenues rose by 107 per cent to $253.6 million, while, net loss increased by 41 per cent to $69.3 million.

Twitter revealed: "We generated 85 per cent and 87 per cent of our revenue from advertising in 2012 and the six months ended June 30, 2013, respectively."

It further said: "Since our inception, we have incurred significant operating losses and, as of June 30, 2013, we had an accumulated deficit of $418.6 million.

"Although our revenue has grown rapidly, increasing from $28.3 million in 2010 to $316.9 million in 2012, we expect that our revenue growth rate will slow in the future as a result of a variety of factors, including the gradual slowdown in the growth rate of our user base."

The firm employs about 2,000 people as of June 2013.

Twitter, which has to date over 300 billion tweets, has a user base of 218.3 million average MAUs in the three months ended June 30, 2013, a 44 per cent increase from 151.4 million average MAUs in the three months ended June 30, 2012. Its users create about 500 million tweets every day.

"In the three months ended June 30, 2013, 75 per cent of our average MAUs accessed Twitter from a mobile device, including mobile phones and tablets, and over 65 per cent of our advertising revenue was generated from mobile devices.

"We expect that the proportion of active users on, and advertising revenue generated from, mobile devices, will continue to grow in the near term," the filing added.