Twitter tops forecasts in revenue, user base

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter reported surprisingly strong second-quarter user numbers and revenue Friday, as it works to make the platform more user-friendly and eliminate robotic and fake accounts on its platform.

On that front, the social media messaging service said instances of suspicious behavior and spam dropped by 18% during the quarter.

But Twitter’s push to cut down on fake accounts costs money, and its adjusted profit fell 36% to about $37 million, or 5 cents per share. At the same time, revenue surged 18%, to $841 million, better than the $829 million that Wall Street was looking for, according to a survey by FactSet. In April, Twitter had forecast revenue of $770 million to $830 million for the quarter.

Twitter’s daily user base rose 14% to 139 million, an increase of 5 million users. Analysts were expecting 134.7 million daily users.

The revenue surge was due to higher advertising revenue. The company said it is on track to hire 20% more people than last year.

“The health-first conversation is a way to continue to grow the audience, our revenue product and sales and platform,” said Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal. “And so the head count growth is really thinking about all of those areas.”

Shares of Twitter rose by 8.92%, or $3.40, to close at $41.52.

The San Francisco company started disclosing its daily user base earlier this year.

These are users who log into the site at least once a day and see advertisements on the platform.

This metric has replaced its monthly user number disclosures.

Segal said the user growth was broad-based, both in the U.S. and internationally, driven by the site’s continued relevance in the national conversation.