Back when Twitter’s stock price was trading around $37, the company acquired Bangalore, India-based ZipDial to bring “Twitter to more people around the world.”
One year and eight months later — with Twitter’s stock price cut roughly in half — the social network is reportedly laying off half of its staff in Bangalore, including all of its engineers there. While Twitter declined to disclose the number of people affected, a person familiar with the matter tells VentureBeat that the layoffs in the city affected fewer than 20 people.
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In January 2015, Twitter called out ZipDial’s potential to bring tweets to “areas where people aren’t always connected” to Wi-Fi or cellular networks. Twitter formed a new engineering office in Bangalore at the time, as part of a “significantly” increased investment in India.
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Yesterday, Twitter reportedly said the layoffs are “part of our normal business review.”
Twitter’s actions have prompted at least one Bangalore-based company, Stayzilla, to tweet job offers to the affected engineers.
Updated 7:51 a.m. PT with details on the number of people affected.
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