Twitter's share price plunged more than 20 per cent today, wiping billions off the market valuation, after the social media platform admitted it had lost more than a million users.
The figures
Twitter's second quarter revenues were up 24 per cent to $711m, ahead of expectations of $697.3m. Net income swung to a profit of $100.1m compared with a loss of $116.4m during the same period last year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the three months to 30 June rose to $265m from $177.8m in 2017.
However the Silicon Valley giant also reported 335 million monthly active users, down from 336 million in the first quarter.
Although that measure was up 2.8 per cent year-on-year, Twitter admitted monthly visitors would fall again in the current period, blaming the projected drop on intensified efforts to clean up the platform, stricter privacy rules in Europe and changes to the way its service is used through SMS messaging.
Looking ahead, Twitter said it expects adjusted EBITDA to be between $215m and $235m.
Why it's interesting
Twitter is clearly conscious of the decline in user numbers and today pledged to make its customers feel safe to express themselves on the platform. It has previously announced that it is cleaning up its platform by purging fake accounts.
What Twitter said
Chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey said: “Our second quarter results reflect the work were doing to ensure more people get value from Twitter every day.
“We want people to feel safe freely expressing themselves and have launched new tools to address problem behaviours that distort and distract from the public conversation. Were also continuing to make it easier for people to find and follow breaking news and events, and have introduced machine learning algorithms that organise the conversation around events, beginning with the World Cup.
"These efforts contributed to healthy year-over-year daily active usage growth of 11 percent and demonstrate why were investing in the long-term health of Twitter.”
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CityAM
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