Twitter snubs Nasdaq as it reveals a threefold increase in losses
The micro-blogging service seeks to avoid the trading glitches that afflicted Facebook's 2012 IPO by listing with the NYSE
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Your support makes all the difference.Twitter has announced that it will list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rather than the technology-focused Nasdaq, with re-filed financial documents revealing a threefold increase in losses from 2012 to 2013.
“We intend to list the common stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol 'TWTR,” announced the micro-blogging site.
The Nasdaq was criticized following Facebook’s volatile IPO on the exchange in 2012 which saw the social network’s market capitalization drop by $20 billion over six days.
Technical glitches exacerbated these losses, with some investors unable to confirm or carry out trades. In May this year the Nasdaq agreed to pay a penalty of $10m (£6.3m) after regulators said that its decisions and systems has disrupted Facebook’s IPO.
Twitter's announcement to list on the NYSE also included newly re-filed financial details, revealing a tripling of quarterly losses year-on-year from 2012 to 2013. Increased spend on advertising and research and development saw net losses jump from $21.6m to $64.6m.
This was offset by a comparable jump in third-quarter revenue, from $70.7 million in 2012 to $133.8 million in 2013, and a jump in monthly actives users. The company's initial IPO filing on 3 October listed this figure as 218 million, this has since been revised to 231.7 million.
The re-filed listing also confirmed Twitter's strength on mobile platforms, with more than 70 per cent of advertising revenue coming from smartphones and tablets, up from 65 per cent in the previous quarter.
One metric that shows how the site has grown its advertising business includes interaction with sponsored tweets from advertisers.
From the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013, user interaction with ads (including clicking on them or retweeting them) increased fifteen-fold.
Twitter's IPO: who are the big investors?
The new filing revealed that private-equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management LLC currently has the biggest stake (17.9%) with J.P. Morgan following with 10.3%.
Other major investors were listed but their stakes weren't specified. These include Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital Partners.
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