Twitter
announced on Wednesday that it lost 2 million users in the last three months of
2015. Shares plummeted as much as 12% in after-hours trading.
According to CNN reports say that; “Twitter had 305 million
active users by the end of 2015. By contrast, Facebook (FB, Tech30) has 1.6
billion. Google (GOOGL, Tech30) has eight products with over 1 billion users
each. Even Instagram surpassed Twitter in September, growing to 400 million
users, it’s growing at a snail’s pace.”
The
company is still a relatively niche product that hasn’t been able to expand its reach the way that its rivals have.
Although it has been able to effectively generate sales from sponsored tweets
and partnerships.
With new
management, products, designs and features, Twitter’s growth has stagnated, and it’s nowhere close to turning a profit.
However,
Twitter disclosed that it is testing a new algorithm that will change the
chronological order of feeds, hoping to appeal more to casual users who aren’t obsessed with keeping up with thousands of tweets in real time.
Twitter
CEO, Jack Dorsey, said its new timeline feature has shown “real promising growth” in user engagement.
“We’re going to refine our core service and make everything more
intuitive,” Dorsey said. “There’s an opportunity to fix
broken windows and confusing aspects that are inhibiting growth. We think the
timeline is a big part of that,” Dorsey added.
Sales
Fourth
quarter of 2014: $479 million
Fourth
quarter of 2015: $710 million, up 48%
It wasn't
all bad news last quarter. Twitter reported record sales. The company continues
to succeed in its advertising initiatives. The company said it had 130,000
advertisers by the end of the fourth quarter, up 90% over the previous year.
But the
company said it expects sales growth to slow in the current quarter. It
predicted that revenue will be between $595 million and $610 million this
quarter, far below the median forecasts of analysts surveyed by Thomson
Reuters.
Profit
Fourth
quarter of 2014: - $125 million
Fourth
quarter of 2015: - $90 million, 28% improvement
Twitter
continues to lose money. Though its losses narrowed, it shows no signs of
turning a profit.
Active
customers
Third
quarter of 2015: 307 million
Fourth
quarter of 2015: 305 million, down less than 1%
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