Twitter rolled out its controversial algorithmic timeline yesterday, and on the same day, it announced its fiscal fourth quarter earnings results. The micro-blogging firm reported that it had 320 million active monthly users (MAUs) in the quarter, which is the same as in the last quarter. However, with some logic, it appears that the number of MAUs has actually dropped.
MAUs actually declined for Twitter
Excluding SMS Fast Followers– international users who use the SMS version of Twitter– the number of monthly active users dropped to 305 million from 307 million. Apart from the declining user base, another problem facing the company is the exodus of top talent. In late January, it lost four of its key executives.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, it made revenue of $70 million and incurred net losses of $90 million. In comparison with the last quarter, the company’s revenue went up 90%, while net losses declined 27%. Twitter said its base of advertisers grew 90% on a YoY basis and now stands at 130,000. These figures were better than what Wall Street had expected.
While the financials have improved, Twitter’s active user base was flat to negative. The company issued a letter to investors directly addressing the user growth issue.
“We are going to fix the broken windows and confusing parts, like the .@name syntax and @reply rules, that we know inhibit usage and drive people away.”
Twitter’s priorities for 2016
In the letter, the social media firm also laid out its core goals in an attempt to give a glimpse of its efforts.
The company said, “We have five priorities in 2016 to serve this focus: refinement of our core service; live streaming video; our creators and influencers; safety; and developers. Each is critical to us strengthening our platform and audience around live.”
Twitter CFO Anthony Noto said that though user growth remained stagnant, a good rise was seen in key metrics such as retweets, direct messages and engagement time.
Twitter’s dedication to become the world’s largest social network has not been affected despite the fact it has a stagnant or even slipping user base. The financial performance is improving continually; therefore, it might lay more emphasis on growing its relevance in the world of politics, sports, media, and entertainment.
