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Twitter announces first African office in Ghana, begins hiring

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Twitter has announced it is planning to open an office in Accra, the Ghanaian capital – the first in Africa for the social media giant. The company will start hiring for an in-country product and engineering team immediately, onboarding new starters remotely.

By putting down roots on the continent, Twitter hopes to find new audiences.

"To truly serve the public conversation, we must be more immersed in the rich and vibrant communities that drive the conversations taking place every day across the African continent," said head of product Kayvon Beykpour in a blog post.

He added that the social media platform sees its investment as more than just opening an office – it's a way of engaging with the wider community.

"As part of our long-term commitment to the region, we'll continue to explore compelling ways we can use the positive power of Twitter to strengthen our communities through employee engagement, platform activation, and corporate giving," he said.

Accelerating change

Ghana is already a hub for technology startups and innovation in Africa, along with its neighbor Nigeria, and is home to co-working spaces, tech hubs, accelerators and incubators.

The president, Nana Akufo-Addo, welcomed the news, appropriately taking to Twitter.

"As I indicated to @Jack in our virtual meeting of 7th April 2021, this is the start of a beautiful partnership between Twitter and Ghana, which is critical for the dev't of Ghana's hugely important tech sector," he said.

Twitter is a little late to the game. Facebook has operated from Johannesburg since 2015 and says it will open an office in Lagos in 2021.

This is reflected in market share – Twitter trails Facebook, which had 58.74% market share in March 2021 according to Statcounter, at just 11.75%, behind YouTube.

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