Twitter Files for $1 Billion IPO 16:43 0 comments

Twitter filed on Thursday to raise $1 billion in its public offering in the coming weeks and list under with ticker "TWTR."

The company filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which revealed that it now has 218.3 million monthly active users in the second quarter, more than 100 million daily active users and 500 million tweets per day.

Twitter also said it generated revenue of $316.9 million in 2012 and is on pace to do better than that this year, with revenue of $253.6 million in the first six months of this year. However, the company is not consistently profitable: It lost nearly $80 million in 2012 and reported a net loss of $69 million in the first six months of this year.

In contrast to Facebook, whose mobile usage proved to be a red flag for investors leading up to the IPO, Twitter's mobile stats are particularly impressive: 75% of Twitter's monthly active users access the social network from a mobile device and 65% of the company's ad revenue is said to come from mobile. Facebook, by comparison, said that 41% of its total ad revenue came from mobile in the most recent quarter.

Twitter announced in a tweet last month that it took advantage of the JOBS Act to file confidential paperwork with the SEC to go public. The move, which took advantage of the JOBS Act for emerging businesses, appeared designed to dull some of the hype and scrutiny that Facebook and other tech companies experienced in the lead-up to their own IPO.

True to form, Twitter pre-announced that it was about to release its S-1 form with a tweet and, in what may be a first, the paperwork itself included plenty of tweets highlighting how brands and prominent figures have used the service over the years.

You can view the full SEC filing here: Twitter's IPO Filling