Prince Andrew becomes first British royal to join Twitter

London: Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has become the first member of the British royal family to open an official Twitter account.

Andrew, fourth in line to the throne, chose @TheDukeOfYork as his handle on the micro-blogging site, BBC reported.

His first tweet was "Welcome to my Twitter account - AY". If the tweets are signed AY, they would be written by Andrew himself.

The prince served for 22 years in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot.

Two golf clubs and two official royal family accounts -- @BritishMonarchy and @ClarenceHouse -- are among the organisations Andrew is already following on Twitter.

Within two hours of going online, the duke`s account had more than 3,000 followers.

IANS