Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) opened new Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore today. The APAC HQ is part of efforts to establish a strong presence outside of the United States. Twitter had opened a service office in Singapore in 2013, and the office has quickly grown to boast a staff of 80.
Twitter’s VP of Asia Pacific Shailesh Rao (@shaileshrao) and Twitter’s Managing Director of Online Sales; Asia Pacific (@alizaknox) hosted the opening ceremony of the Singapore office. One of the high profile dignitaries in attendance at the opening ceremony is Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim. Dr.Yaacob is Singapore’s Minister for Communications & Information. Dr. Yaccob celebrated the opening of the APAC headquarters with a Tweet reading;
“Happy to open @Twitter‘s APAC HQ in #Singapore! Congrats @shaileshrao @alizaknox @parrysingh @TwitterSG! #Home4Good pic.twitter.com/O1qriniVR8”
— Yaacob Ibrahim (@YaacobIbrahim) June 11, 2015
Twitter Activity Hub
Twitter has said that the new regional headquarters will be used for a variety of business functions. Some of the activities that will be done in the Singapore office are HR, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Partnerships, User Services, Policy and Legal. Twitter has outfitted the new office with a #RealTimeLab. #RealTimeLab is a social media center for creating, executing and sharing, live Twitter campaigns, data analytics and visualizations with partners.
A Regional Hub for Digital Innovation
More so, there are plans to make Singapore a regional hub for digital innovation with a doubling of the staff. Twitter currently has about 80 workers in the Singapore office, and it plans to hire about 100 new technical staff for the office. Some of the technical professionals that will be getting jobs at Twitter in the next couple of weeks include; Product specialists, data analytics professionals, engineering, and technology support.
Twitter Dreams Big
Twitter has big dreams for the new headquarters, considering the fact that the Asia-Pacific region is currently one of the fastest and largest growing regions for Twitter. According to Shailesh Rao, “there still is enormous potential to show people the value of our platform, from Japan to India to Australia“.
Twitter has about 302 million Monthly Active Users, and about 500 million monthly visitors who do not sign into an account. 78% of those visitors are from outside the United States; yet, only 34% of Twitter’s revenue is generated from the International segment.
Interestingly, in the first quarter, Twitter’s International revenue increased by an impressive 109% to $147 million. Hence, Twitter has a huge upside potential ahead if it could effectively monetize its strong brand awareness for advertising revenue.
Rao confirms Twitter’s expectations for the Singapore office in saying, ” we’re capitalizing on this growth in 2015 by making strategic investments across the region – from opening new offices and aggressively hiring staff, to acquiring companies and building local product experiences”.
