Twitter announced an expected share price on Thursday of between $17 and $20 for its eagerly awaited initial public offering, which will see the microblogging company valued as high as $11.1 billion.

In an official prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it hoped to raise $1.6 billion from the share offering, up from a previous $1 billion.

Twitter said it would offer 70 million shares for between $17 and $20 each, plus an over-allotment of a further 10.5 million shares if the initial launch goes well.

The prospectus did not give a date for the launch, but The Wall Street Journal said that trading could begin as early as November 7.

The valuation places the IPO far below Facebook, which was valued as high as $80 billion at its May 2012 market debut. Twitter has fewer users, and its format makes advertising harder, undermining its chances to rapidly monetise.

Twitter is still losing money as it pursues rapid growth. The company said it lost $134 million in the first nine months of the year. At the same time, revenues doubled to $422 million.

The company said it has more than 200 million monthly active users and that it processes more than 500 million active tweets per day.

The largest shareholder according to the prospectus is the investment firm Rizvi Traverse, which holds 17.9 per cent of the company’s shares, followed by co-founder Evan Williams with a 12 per cent stake.

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