Twitter revenue doubles but growth stalls
TWITTER saw its revenues more than double in the fourth quarter trumping analyst expectations, but a slowdown in the growth of new users alarmed investors.
In its first results as a public company, the social media firm posted revenue of $243m (£149m) in the three months to the end of December, up 116 per cent year-on-year. But monthly active users grew just 3.8 per cent to 241m, down from the 10 per cent growth seen in the first quarter 2013.
Shares in Twitter fell as much as 18 per cent in after hours trading.
Losses widened in line with expectations to $511m during the quarter, as the company absorbed a $521m charge for stock granted prior to the firm’s November float.
Timeline views – a key metric that Twitter uses to measure a user scrolling through their Twitter feed – fell from 159bn during the third quarter 2013 to 148bn last quarter. However, Twitter’s advertising revenue per 1,000 timeline views rose over 50 per cent to $1.49 highlighting the increasing monetisation of users.
“We don’t think we need to change anything about the characteristics of our platform – we just need to make Twitter a better Twitter,” said chief executive Dick Costolo.