Twitter Misses Ad Revenue, User Growth Estimates (reuters.com) 21
Twitter reported weaker-than-expected quarterly advertising revenue and user growth on Thursday and forecast revenue short of Wall Street targets, indicating that its turnaround plan has yet to bear fruit. Reuters reports: Still, the social networking site said it made "meaningful progress" toward its goal of reaching 315 million users and $7.5 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2023, and said user growth should accelerate in the United States and internationally this year. Shares of the San Francisco-based company rose more than 8% after the results, but pared those gains in morning trading.
Monetizable daily active users, or users who see ads, grew 13% to 217 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, missing consensus estimates of 218.5 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. That was up from 211 million users in the previous quarter. [...] Advertising revenue for the fourth quarter grew 22% year over year to $1.41 billion, missing analysts' estimates of $1.43 billion. Twitter gained 6 million users during the quarter, but will need to add over 12 million each quarter over the next two years to hit its target of 315 million people by the end of 2023, said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, calling it "an incredibly lofty goal."
Monetizable daily active users, or users who see ads, grew 13% to 217 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, missing consensus estimates of 218.5 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. That was up from 211 million users in the previous quarter. [...] Advertising revenue for the fourth quarter grew 22% year over year to $1.41 billion, missing analysts' estimates of $1.43 billion. Twitter gained 6 million users during the quarter, but will need to add over 12 million each quarter over the next two years to hit its target of 315 million people by the end of 2023, said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, calling it "an incredibly lofty goal."
Are the Social Media Companies (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It says: the number of users who see ads grew 13% and the ad revenue grew 22%. They are doing just fine (unfortunately). Don't get fooled by the apparent disappointment, it comes from greedy investors who want to see three-digit growth forever.
Re: (Score:3)
They may be trying to force more people that visit into getting accounts to see content, so the situation may be more advertising for what may be the same number of people visiting the site. Ad growth, yes, but maybe not real growth in site users. If they keep banning interesting accounts they may start bleeding followers to other sites. It would be better if Twitter as a company recognized its shortcomings, but not likely to happen. Twitter has blocked newspapers announcing their stories, people with s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"Woke" advertisers are discovering the people who ban people who use pronouns correctly or matching biology don't buy things, mostly because they don't have jobs. They live off of Dad's toxic male job, and those older men are retiring or old enough to be vulnerable to Covid-19.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I have a suggestion (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey Twitter, maybe if you stopped banning users at the slightest whiff of what you THINK might be misinformation, you could get more people signing up and also stop losing users.
How long before a more open platform reaches critical mass and most people switch to that? I'm not sure it's much longer now, they way Twitter is clamping down on everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure it's much longer now, they way Twitter is clamping down on everyone.
Such as telling people if they criticize the site [imgur.com] they will be banned?
Re: (Score:3)
It's next to impossible to reach a critical mass without a new and more compelling product. There can never be another twitter, it has to be something else.
Sites like Gettr, Parler, Gab have found a niche in conservative politics but that's where they will remain unfortunately.
It's easy to switch, but people just don't do it. It's easy to never see an ad on the Internet but people still sit through ads before every youtube video they watch (shudder).
Re: (Score:1)
Twitter freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
On Twitter you are free to mouth the politically correct position held by the monoculture of the company or their hired "fact checkers.". Expressing anything that departs from the view of the monoculture for long periods of time seems to eventually lead to trouble. It's a poor choice to bet your professional life, business, political campaign, or public life on Twitter without a robust backup plan if you are a normal person. There is a strong argument that they abuse their Section 230 protections.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong! If it were true, then Parler would be exploding, and it's not. Twitter is right to silence shitheads. In truth, it has reached saturation. Additionally, like FB, Snap, etc., it is hurt by Apple's limitations on tracking.
There is a lot more money to be made in a a moderated environment like Twitter than there is in a smoldering dungheap like Parler.
Of course, Parler will have to moderate its content eventually, too, lest it be dragged into seditious conspiracies.
tiktok (Score:2)
IG , tiktok and others are taking people from twitter. video clips are the future for now.
Re: (Score:2)
But not everyone wants videos!
Good. (Score:2)
There's no such thing as "karma".
But it does my heart good to see platforms like FB and Twitter stumble and fall.
When all they had to do is not be evil.