Twitter Still Struggling to Boost User Growth, Stands at 328 Million Monthly Active Users

Twitter Inc failed to add users on a monthly basis in the second quarter, compared with the first quarter, amid fierce competition from Facebook Inc and Snap Inc's fast-growing messaging app Snapchat.

Twitter's shares fell 5 percent in premarket trading on Thursday.

The company's second-quarter net loss widened as it took a $55 million (roughly Rs. 353 crores) impairment charge and revenue fell 4.7 percent.

Twitter has been trying to boost revenue through live-streaming deals, but suffered a setback in April when it lost a deal to live stream NFL games this year to Amazon.com Inc.

Twitter's average monthly active users was 328 million in the second quarter ended June 30. Analysts were expecting 328.8 million, according to financial data and analytics firm FactSet.

Monthly active users is a key performance indicator for social networking services - typically calculated by taking the number of users who have logged in and logged out during the 30-day period.

Advertising revenue fell 8 percent to $489 million (roughly Rs. 3,135 crores), but came in well ahead of the $458.1 million estimate.

"Until Twitter can return to revenue growth, we expect advertisers to devote their ad budgets to platforms with better targeting, reach, and scale," Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote in a pre-earnings note.

The company's net loss widened to $116.5 million (roughly Rs. 747 crores), or 16 cents per share, in the second quarter ended June 30, from $107.2 million (roughly Rs. 687.2 crores), or 15 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 8 cents per share.

Revenue fell about 4.7 percent to $573.9 million (roughly Rs. 3,680 crores), the second time it has fallen since Twitter's debut in 2013.

© Thomson Reuters 2017