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Twitter growth

Twitter announces greater profits but users continue to drop

Twitter growth

Twitter announces greater profits but users continue to drop

Social networking site Twitter has recently announced that it has made another profit in the final quarter of 2018.

The company announced reporting profits totalling $255m (£197m) for the final three months of last year. This is significantly higher than the profits it made in 2017, when the company made a profit of $91 million – almost half the 2018 figure.

However, this seems to be as good as it gets for the company at present, as despite recording healthy profits, shares have tumbled by 10%. This is because the organisation’s revenue forecast has not lived up to expectations, falling short of predictions. As a result, the company expects to make revenues of between $715m and $775m.

Furthermore, the company has also stated that it may see its operating costs rising by as much as 20% this year. This comes as a number of social media sites are being pressured into policing the content uploaded to them much more closely than they have been in the past, following a number of scandals, political campaigns and privacy issues hitting sites, as well as talk of the connection being social media and mental health.

In a response to this, Twitter has explained that it has got rid of millions of accounts that are abusive and hateful as part of the company’s efforts to clean up the site. As may have been expected, this initially caused a drop in the number of active monthly users. Back in October last year, the company announced this initial drop, with the number of active users dropping from 335 million to 326 million and the latest figures show that it has continued to fall, with another five million active users leaving the site. Twitter now has 321 million active monthly users – the lowest number for the site in over two years.

As a result of this, the company will no longer be reporting on the number of monthly users the site has as of next quarter.

Company chief executive Jack Dorsey said that the financial figures that Twitter posted shows that the company’s long-term strategy is working. Dorsey is also confident that the company will continue to deliver strong performances throughout 2019 by focusing on making the site a healthier service.

Twitter may take notice of rivals Facebook though, as despite all the problems it has been having, the largest social media site in the world got a little bigger. The number of monthly users has increased by 9% over the last year, and now stands at 2.32 billion.

Alan Littler

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