Twitter Stocks Plunge As User Growth Slows

Twitter Has A Big Problem: Its Growth Has Stalled

Twitter has a problem - it has more users than ever. But that's not enough anymore.

And it's stock just took a plunge as a result.

In its latest earnings report Twitter said it had:

  • Revenue of250 million (Beating analyst expectations)
  • 255 million monthly users, up from 241 million in the previous quarter
  • Revenue guidance next quarter of270-280 million

All of which is good. Unfortunately it's not quite as good as analysts had hoped - especially user numbers, which were light. By comparison Facebook has 1.28 billion users globally, while WhatsApp - bought by Facebook this year for $19 billion - has 500 million-plus.

The numbers show that Twitter's user base grew just 5.8% in the last quarter - compared to 10% a year ago. Its ad revenue per 1,000 timeline views was also down, from $1.49 last quarter to $1.44 this quarter. Overall Twitter made a net loss of $132 million.

Its stocks fell after the announcement by more than 11% in after-hours trading, sending the price below its $38.80 IPO valuation.

But CEO Dick Costolo remained upbeat, saying after the announcement that the site had seen a boost of 26% in retweets and favourites in the last quarter:

"We had 3.3 billion views of tweets just about the Oscars in the 48 hours after the show… We think of Twitter as this companion experience as to what's happening in the world."

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