Twitter opens Asia Pacific Hq in Singapore

• Hiring 100 new staff, more than double the 80 in Singapore now
• Asia Pacific to account for more than 40% of all users by 2018

SOCIAL network company Twitter Inc has launched its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, about a year after first opening its subsidiary in the island-republic, saying that it would more than double headcount from the current 80.
 
The company will be hiring an additional 100 staff, including data analytics professionals, product specialists and engineering and technology support, for its office at Singapore’s central business district, CNBC reported.
 
The portal quoted Twitter Asia Pacific vice president Shailesh Rao as saying that Asia Pacific “is already one of the largest and fastest growing regions for Twitter today.”
 
The microblogging company did not give a breakdown of users by country, but eMarketer estimates that Asia Pacific accounted for 32.8% of all Twitter users in 2014, compared with 23.7% in North America.
 
It said that by 2018, Asia Pacific will more than double North America’s share, breaking the 40% mark in terms of worldwide market share, with India and Indonesia being the biggest growth drivers. In its report last year, it estimated that India and Indonesia will grow to be Twitter’s third and fourth largest markets.
 
Twitter already has three offices in India – Bangalore, Gurgaon and Mumbai – and one in Jakarta, as well as Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney, Tokyo. It said it has 35 offices around the world and employs 3,900 people, of whom more than 50% are engineers.
 
The company said that it currently has 302 million active users, with 77% of its accounts outside the United States, sending 500 million tweets a day. It also supports 33 languages.
 
Twitter’s international markets accounted for only 34% of total revenue at US$147 million, in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015, but this was a 109% increase from the corresponding quarter last year.
 
For the quarter ended March 31, 2015, the company reported quarterly revenue of US$436 million, up 74% year-over-year, slightly below the previously forecast range of US$440 million to US$450 million.
 
Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, total revenue would have increased 80%, it said in a statement.
 
“Twitter's first quarter revenues were affected by a lower-than-expected contribution from its newer direct response products.
 
“The company expects this revenue impact to continue for the remainder of the fiscal year,” it added.
 
Twitter said that advertising revenue totalled US$388 million, an increase of 72% year-over-year. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, advertising revenue would have increased 78%.
 
Mobile advertising revenue was 89% of total advertising revenue.

UPDATE: A mere hours after this news, Twitter Inc chief executive officer Dick Costolo, who conducted a massive overhaul of the company’s management team when he took over, abruptly announced he was stepping down.
 
The announcement comes amid increasing scrutiny of the company's slow user growth and inability to attract advertisers at the same rate as its competitors, Reuters reported, adding that he will be placed by cofounder Jack Dorsey on an interim basis as the company looks for a successor.
 
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