Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s mobile user base is expanding, but is still having trouble attracting enough investors. The micro-blogging site reported an increase in user growth for the third-quarter along with the profit for the second straight quarter, but the most encouraging figures were from the mobile device segment.
Growing dominance of the mobile platform
According to the company, 80% of its monthly active users visit Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) through a mobile device. For the quarter ending September 30, Twitter reported that it registered 284 million users who logged to the site at least once a day. This marks an increase of 23% from the same time in the previous year, and a rise of approximately 5% from 271 million in June.
Mobile devices are becoming more and more important for the tech industry. Apple depends on its iPhone and iPad tablet for revenues while Google is focusing on tapping advertisements for its Android mobile operating system. In the case of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), almost 85% of its ad revenue comes from mobile devices compared to 70% last year.
Investors are, however, still cautious, pushing the stock of the company downwards by more than 10% in after-hours trading Monday. The micro-blogging site guided that the revenue growth will be lower in the next three months, which alarmed investors. Shares of the company have dropped approximately 24% so far this year.
Twitter (TWTR) must pace-up
To beat the competition, Twitter touts itself as a central hub of real-time communication. News organizations publish their breaking news on Twitter, Sports stars post photos during games and politicians use the medium to pass on their message.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has also managed to attract a number of advertisers on the web with the help of a feature known as “promoted tweets,” where the company publishes marketing messages into a user’s stream of messages. When compared, Facebook is more popular as it depends on inserting images and videos into a user’s stream based on the information about the user, their likes and other details.
According to CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter needs to work even faster. “It’s more critical than ever to increase our overall pace of execution,” he said during a conference call with investors. This means that Twitter needs to create and innovate new features faster. For the fourth quarter, Twitter is expecting sales to come in between $440 million and $450 million, an increase of 81%.
