Twitter to open Hong Kong office despite usage ban in China SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Social media company Twitter Inc. will open a Hong Kong office, despite a ban on its services in China since 2009. Twitter's Hong Kong office will focus mainly on sales, and will open in early 2015. Currently, 77 percent of Twitter users are outside the United States, but the San Francisco-based company receives only 34 percent of its revenue from international sources. Twitter already has a Pacific Rim presence with offices in Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore; a planned office in Jakarta has not yet opened. The Chinese government's concern that Twitter's services could be used to organize protests led to China blocking Twitter since 2009. Google, Facebook and other competitors have been similarly banned. We would love to have Twitter everywhere in the world including China. Unfortunately, we can't. That's not our choice. We don't control that decision," Shailesh Rao, Twitter vice president for Asia Pacific, told the Wall Street Journal. A Twitter spokesperson told the British Broadcasting Corp., "With half of all Internet, mobile and social media users worldwide in Asia today, we see many opportunities across the region."