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The office, to be headed by Twitter executive
Peter Greenberger, will allow the San Francisco-based company to
tap China for advertising revenue, the company said, even if
Internet users on the mainland cannot see those ads.
Twitter collected $479 million in fourth-quarter revenue from
advertisers who paid to inject their ads, known as "promoted
tweets", into Twitter users' timelines. The company has 288
million users worldwide.
China's censors have blocked Twitter's microblog since 2009
along with U.S. social media platform Facebook Inc and Google
Inc's YouTube.
Beijing officials say this censorship is necessary to maintain
social order. Twitter was credited with helping fuel the popular
uprisings in the Middle East and has maintained a stridently
pro-free speech stance to the extent that it has attracted
international criticism for failing to police sexist and racist
abuse.
Despite the ban, Chinese companies including Huawei Technologies
Co Ltd [HWT.UL] and the state-owned Xinhua news agency use
Twitter's microblogging service to reach a global audience.
Last year, the company downplayed suggestions it would seek to
enter China, citing political hurdles.
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
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