Twitter reveals daily numbers
Twitter for the first time disclosed the number of users who compose and read tweets on the site each day.
In its earnings report released this month, Twitter said it has 126 million daily active users, a figure that is dwarfed by Facebook’s 1.2 billion daily users and that falls short of Snapchat’s daily users by 60 million.
While the figure reveals Twitter’s lesser size in comparison with other social networks, the number of daily users continues to grow, with a 9 percent increase compared with the same period last year. Twitter also said its daily user numbers only include those accounts that can see advertisements; it excludes, for instance, people who use third-party apps that don’t show ads, which the company says makes its figures “not comparable to current disclosures from other companies.”
Twitter has historically disclosed the percentage growth of its daily users, but not the actual figure.
The company also posted another profitable quarter, its fifth consecutive period of profitability. Twitter brought in $909 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, up 24 percent from a year prior, with a profit of $255 million — more than double what it made during the same period in 2017.
“2018 is proof that our long-term strategy is working,” CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement. “We enter this year confident that we will continue to deliver strong performance by focusing on making Twitter a healthier and more conversational service.”
But for the first quarter of 2019, Twitter expects revenue to come in between $715 million and $775 million, an outlook that may have unsettled investors, along with the change in disclosures about user numbers.
Dorsey said the company’s strategy includes four broad objectives: promoting healthy conversation on the platform, making it easier for users to participate in conversations, improving the platform for advertisers and focusing on new technology.
Twitter reported that the number of monthly active users is declining. Twitter claimed 321 million monthly users, down 9 million, or more than 2 percent from the same time last year. “The falloff in monthly active users is likely a continuation of Twitter’s efforts to remove questionable accounts,” which began last quarter, said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at the research firm emarketer.