Twitter Reveals $1 Billion IPO Plan; First Glimpse of Financials Shows Users Still Growing but No Profit; TWTR Has Yet to Name Exchange
Twitter Inc. on Thursday revealed plans to raise up to $1 billion in a public offering, looking to cash in on a messaging service that has transformed public conversation but is still losing money and facing challenges attracting new users and advertisers.</br></br>Potential buyers for the first time saw the financials behind one of the most anticipated stock-market debuts of the year, which showed the social network's revenue more than doubled to $254 million in the first six months of this year.</br></br>But its net loss grew by 40% to $69 million as the company's expenses ballooned. Twitter's user growth is also slowing, and prices for advertisements, which make up the bulk of the company's revenue, are falling.</br></br>"They certainly have a lot of work ahead of them to get mainstream America to understand" how Twitter works, said Brian Solis, an analyst at the Altimeter Group.</br></br>Twitter had previously shielded the figures by filing its initial IPO documents confidentially in July, under a new federal law.