Twitter IPO to raise up to USD 1.6 bn; valued at USD 10.9 bn

Micro-blogging site Twitter has said that its much-anticipated IPO, which is scheduled next month, could raise as much as USD 1.6 billion.
The US-based firm had earlier said its initial public offer (IPO) could raise USD 1 billion.
In a regulatory filing on the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Twitter said it will sell 70 million shares in the range of USD 17-20 apiece and also has the option to sell additional 10.5 million shares.
"It is currently estimated that the IPO price per share will be between USD 17 and USD 20. Our common stock has been approved for listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol 'TWTR', the filing said yesterday.

The IPO will value the company at USD 10.9 billion.
In the filing, the social media major said: "The common stock to be outstanding after this offering will be 544,696,816 shares."

Earlier this month, the San Francisco-based company, founded in 2006, had said in a S-1 filing with the US SEC that it will come out with an IPO.
S-1 is the initial registration form for new securities required by SEC for public companies.
Twitter earlier had said it intends to use the proceeds from the IPO for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures.
"We anticipate making capital expenditures in 2013 of approximately USD 225 million to USD 275 million, and we may use a portion of the net proceeds to fund our anticipated capital expenditures," it had said.

For the six months ended June 30, 2012 to the six months ended June 30, 2013, Twitter revenues rose by 107 per cent to USD 253.6 million, while net loss increased by 41 per cent to USD 69.3 million.
It had generated advertisement revenues of 85 per cent and 87 per cent as on June 30, 2012 and the six months ended June 30, 2013 respectively.
It also said: "Since our inception, we have incurred significant operating losses and, as of June 30, 2013, we had an accumulated deficit of USD 418.6 million.
"Although our revenue has grown rapidly, increasing from USD 28.3 million in 2010 to USD 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 had employed 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.