BIRDIE NEEDS A LIFT

Twitter $low growth

Jack Dorsey is wrestling with a new problem at Twitter — revenue.

The struggling social network’s shares plunged 10 percent in after-hours trades Tuesday after it delivered lackluster quarterly revenue — and warned that the current quarter won’t be much better.

Dorsey — the charismatic 39-year-old co-founder and chief executive who retook the helm nearly a year ago — tried to reassure analysts on a conference call that his recent efforts to make the service easier to use will eventually pay off.

“We’re making the right decisions in our product,” said Dorsey who, to the chagrin of some Twitter investors, splits his time as CEO of payments company Square. “We have so much farther to go.”

Wall Street can agree on that last point, at least.

Twitter’s monthly active users, or MAUs — a closely watched metric that remained stubbornly static — reached just 313 million as of June 30, up a modest 3 million from the previous three months.

More worrisome, however, was the fact that Twitter’s second-quarter revenue rose just 20 percent, to $602 million — its slowest growth rate since the company’s 2013 initial public offering.

The top-line figure missed analysts’ $607 million forecast.

To make matters worse, Twitter doesn’t necessarily expect the picture to improve in the current quarter, with revenue seen between $590 million and $610 million. Analysts were expecting $678 million.

“We’re seeing a continuation of the trends discussed last quarter with less overall advertiser demand than expected,” Twitter said in a filing.

The company blamed “increased competition for social-marketing budgets” — another way of saying rivals like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are eating its lunch.

To regain its footing, Twitter said it is enhancing its video features and tools for advertisers. Scrambling to widen Twitter’s audience, Dorsey lately has been cutting live videostreaming deals with the NFL, NHL and MLB.

“What they really could do with is a campaign that clearly articulates Twitter’s unique selling point” versus rivals like Facebook, says Anindya Ghose, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business.

“It is a publisher of shortform content that brands can leverage to engage consumers with an immediate call to action — or to crisply remind their consumers what they are all about,” according to Ghose.

Twitter narrowed its net loss to $107.2 million, or 15 cents a share, in the quarter, from $136.7 million, or 21 cents, a year earlier.