Twitter files $1 bn IPO, claims 218 m users

Twitter revealed its highly anticipated stock offering Thursday, with the hugely popular messaging platform stating that it seeks to raise $1 billion.

The California firm said it had 218 million active users as of June 30, and lost nearly $80 million on nearly $317 million in revenue in 2012.

The public version of the IPO filing came three weeks after the company indicated it had filed a confidential document, taking advantage of a recent law designed to help emerging companies.

The company will trade under the symbol TWTR, the filing said, without indicating on which exchange the stock will be bought and sold.

The IPO is expected to be the most sought-after since Facebook in May 2012, a listing that faced numerous glitches on the Nasdaq and which saw its share price slump before recovering this year.