Q2 2018: Twitter loses a million users in three months

Twitter has had a very bad weekend, nay, a bad quarter. The company on Friday released its Q2 2018 earnings report, and the numbers did little to inspire investor confidence.

The company’s share price plummeted more than 20% after the social network lost a million monthly active users — all based in the US — since April.

335-million is the current population of Twitter — a figure that has ebbed and flowed but by glacial margins over the past few years.

That stock droop is one of the largest in Twitter’s history, but the firm’s big wigs were optimistic and paid particular attention to short term gains in an investor release.

“We are pleased with our performance in the second quarter in DAU [daily active user] growth and delivering for advertisers,” noted Twitter’s CFO Ned Segal.

“We’re maintaining profitability while we make investments in the business, achieving strong revenue growth and introducing product updates that make Twitter both healthier and easier to use.”

Twitter’s made a concerted effort to improve the health of its platform in 2018.

The company in June scrubbed itself of blemished accounts in a bid to provide users — and advertisers — more accurate metrics.

“Over the years, we’ve locked accounts when we detected sudden changes in account behavior. In these situations, we reach out to the owners of the accounts and unless they validate the account and reset their passwords, we keep them locked with no ability to log in,” wrote Twitter’s lead on legal Vijaya Gadde.

The effects were almost immediate.

Follower drops for some of the network’s most popular users were deep, including US President Donald Trump, who lost some 320 000 followers. Barack Obama — the third-most followed Twitter user — lost 2.3-million, while Katy Perry — the social network’s queen — tanked nearly three million followers.

But this move has done little to inspire users to return to the platform, or investors to lay down their cash.

Nevertheless, Twitter has enjoyed a few numerical spikes where they count.

Advertising revenue is up by 23% compared to Q2 2017, while revenue from all operations increased by 24% year-over-year.

Its daily active user figure also grew by 11% on the back of a 10% increase in the previous quarter, but that did little to impede the company’s weekend slide.

Feature image: Memeburn