Twitter to set up R&D facility in Bangalore

Mumbai: Social networking giant, Twitter, plans to set up a research and design centre in Bangalore, its first such facility outside the US, reported the Financial Times on Wednesday.

The micro-blogging site wants to accelerate growth in major emerging markets, especially India and Indonesia, which are their two fastest-growing user markets this year.

Twitter had recently announced it would buy Bengaluru-based mobile marketing and analytics platform ZipDial. The buyout of ZipDial, one of its product partners in India, will be Twitter’s first acquisition in the country.

Neither Twitter nor ZipDial disclosed the size of the deal. However, an earlier report by technology news portal TechCrunch had said the California-based social media company might have shelled out between $30 million and $40 million for the acquisition.

“With the acquisition, Twitter will become more accessible to users across India and other emerging markets,” Rishi Jaitly, market director (India & Southeast Asia), Twitter, had told Business Standard.

The plans coincide with pressure on Dick Costolo, chief executive, to reverse a slowdown in the growth of Twitter’s much-watched monthly active user numbers