Twitter has officially announced that it plans launch on a public stock market in future.
In a tweet yesterday, the company said that it had filed an S-1 form to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
However, under new rules introduced by the SEC last year, Twitter does not have to reveal details of its business yet because its revenues are less than $1 billion.
“We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO,” the tweet revealed. “This tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.”
According to projections by advertising research firm eMarketer, Twitter’s revenue will not reach $1 billion until some time next year.
The company makes money through a variety of advertising options, including promoted tweets, promoted accounts, and special branded profiles.
In what now looks like an explicit preparation for going public, earlier this week Twitter announced its intention to buy MoPub, a mobile advertising network that will allow it to auction mobile ads in real-time.
In January, investment firm Greencrest Capital estimated Twitter's potential market value at $11 billion. If true, this would make Twitter the most valuable tech company to go public since Facebook made its market debut last May.
After years of avoiding the move and resisting buyout offers, Facebook floated on the US stock market at $104 billion – about four times the value of Google after it went public in 2004 at $23 billion.
Facebook's IPO was besest by technical problems and what many saw as weaker-than-expected demand. The company's stock has undergone a resurgence since then, however, hitting an all-time high of $45 earlier this week.
