Twitter starts trading on NYSE, shares open some 85 pct higher

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Twitter starts trading on NYSE, shares open some 85 pct higher

(Xinhua) 08:00, November 08, 2013

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NEW YORK, Nov. 7 -- Social network giant Twitter Inc. began trading under the symbol "TWTR" on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday morning, with its shares surging roughly 85 percent shortly after its debut.

By 11:00 a.m. local time, Twitter shares were trading around the level of 48 U.S. dollars a share, compared to its initial public offering (IPO) price of 26 dollars per share.

Late Wednesday, the company priced its IPO of 70 million shares of common stock at a price to the public of 26 dollars per share, with its total capital raised amounting to 1.82 billion dollars.

"We are all very proud of the company, of everything we've accomplished... But we also know we had a lot of work ahead of us, " said Twitter's Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo Thursday morning in an interview with CNBC.

Costolo said he will return to the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California on Thursday night to talk to his team about a lot of work that is lying ahead of them. "I want to make sure that we all understand that enormous responsibility we have now to our shareholders and our ongoing commitment to our users, and make sure the team is focused and ready to go," he said.

According to Costolo, Twitter made more money from mobile devices than desktops. "Mobile is already our primary source of total revenue," he said, adding that more than 70 percent of the company's advertising revenue comes from those devices.

Costolo said the company's success will be determined by its ability to amplify existing characteristics of the platform in service to make it an indispensable companion to people's life experience.

Founded in March 2006, Twitter's IPO will be the biggest U.S. technology IPO since Facebook's debut in May 2012.

（Editor：YaoChun、Liang Jun）