Twitter now has more than 200 million active users a month

Today in a tweet, Twitter announced that it now has more than 200-million active users tweeting every month. This new number shows a rise of 60-million users in previously released numbers.

There are now more than 200M monthly active @twitter users. You are the pulse of the planet. We’re grateful for your ongoing support!

— Twitter (@twitter) December 18, 2012

Earlier this year the service, which turned six years old in March, announced that it had passed 140-million active users, with 340-million tweets per day — this new number shows a 42% growth in the last nine months.

This has been a very good year for the social network, it has attracted celebrities, channelled the attention of the world at key moments and partnered with some big names to stake its claim on audience conversation. Sure, it’s nowhere near Facebook’s one billion monthly active users but it’s making strides.

As The Next Web points out, Twitter’s current growth trajectory means the social network has seen an average of 6.6-million new users per month, which means it would take the company over 15 years to hit Facebook’s 1 billion user mark at its current pace.

This week the company also announced a partnership with Nielsen, a reputable research house, that will allow both entities to measure conversation on Twitter regarding television shows. The metric hopes to go a long way in accurately measuring the worth of social TV.

Venturebeat also notes that Twitter’s growth has also come with some costs:

“The company has had its fair share of issues this year, including its recent high-profile spat with Instagram. In September, Twitter introduced its new, more restrictive API, which places some pretty severe limitations on third-party developers. The Twitter ecosystem, unsurprisingly, has not been enthused.”