Twitter to Open Indonesia Office |
Posted: August 29, 2014 |
Twitter says it will open an office in Indonesia within the next six months, drawn to the country's 240 million people and a young population active on social media. WSJ's Ramy Inocencio asks Jakarta reporter Newley Purnell about the details.SINGAPORE— Twitter Inc. TWTR +0.59% plans to open an office in populous Indonesia in the next three to six months, an executive said, highlighting the importance of fast-growing emerging markets as the company seeks future growth. Twitter's Global President of Revenue and Partnerships Adam Bain told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the office will be based in the capital, Jakarta, and will house sales and business development teams, among other staff. n Southeast Asia outside of its Singapore office, which it opened last year, mainly to do regional sales work. Elsewhere in the Asian-Pacific region, Twitter has offices in Seoul, Tokyo and Sydney. Mr. Bain said he couldn't provide details on the number of staff who will be hired to work in the Jakarta office. "You look at Indonesia and you see the size of the audience there and how they're using Twitter, and it's super-invigorating," Mr. Bain said. "Overall it will be a pretty cross-functional office for us in terms of the roles of the people inside the office and the different specialties that the team has." Fast-growing emerging markets like Indonesia are critical as Twitter seeks to increase its users and advertising revenue abroad. The company doesn't break out users by country, but analysts say Indonesia is one of its largest markets, with its population of 240 million people, about half of whom are under the age of 30. Indonesia's recent presidential election was the subject of nearly 95 million tweets from the start of the year, according to internal data from Twitter. Twitter in the second quarter said its revenue more than doubled to $312.2 million, though the company remains unprofitable. The company says it has 271 million monthly active users, about 75% of whom are located outside the U.S. But Twitter derives a much smaller proportion of its revenue internationally. The Twitter Inc. logo and signage is displayed on the facade of the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California. Bloomberg News
Expanding its presence in countries like Indonesia could help address that challenge, Mr. Bain said, because having staff there will allow the company to work more closely with advertisers and marketers. Earlier this week, Twitter said it is bringing its advertising program to 12 emerging markets, primarily in Eastern and Central Europe, underlining its overseas expansion. Facebook, FB +1.22% which competes with Twitter for advertising dollars, in March opened an office in Jakarta. The world's dominant social network says it has some 69 million users in the country. Facebook doesn't disclose rankings for users by country, but research firms estimate that the size of the user base in Indonesia ranks only behind those in the U.S., India and Brazil.
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