Twitter opens Hong Kong office to court Chinese firms

~~BEIJING - Despite being blocked in mainland China since 2009, Twitter is launching a Hong Kong office in an attempt to target Chinese advertisers who plan to expand overseas. Head of sales for emerging markets Peter Greenberger says: “This is the first market we’ve gone into where we’re targeting outside of the country.” The main targets will be “big advertisers looking to reach overseas.”

With 288 million monthly active users sending more than half a billion tweets a day, Greenberger sees a “huge opportunity for Chinese firms looking to connect with an overseas audience and expand beyond the mainland market”.

One key existing client is Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, which unveiled its challenge to the Apple Watch at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, and aims to become “one of the world’s most loved brands”.

Greenberger told the South China Morning Post that it was not the company’s intention to re-enter mainland China and to challenge Chinese microblogging services such as Weibo: “Our ideal customer is someone who is advertising on Weibo and wants to do the same for an international audience.”  www.webershandwick.com (ATI).