In its most recent quarter, Twitter didn’t just report stronger-than-expected financials. It also showed continued user growth, which has been an ongoing concern for the company.
Twitter says there were an average of 271 million monthly active users, compared to 255 million in the first quarter of this year. (Of that total, 211 million active users were mobile, representing 78 percent of all active users.)
That’s an increase of 16 million users, or about 6.3 percent quarter-over-quarter, and an increase of 24 percent year-over-year.
Concerns over user growth were reportedly a big cause of Twitter’s executive shakeup last month. The company’s active user base has never actually declined on a quarterly basis, but its growth appeared to be slowing, reaching a low of 3.9 percent at the end of last year.
The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Twitter would be releasing new user metrics as an attempt to highlight its reach beyond logged-in users, but that effort seems to be delayed. So this earnings report, like the ones before it, stuck with monthly actives and timeline views as the main measures of user reach and engagement.
Timeline views, by the way, were up 15 percent year-over-year, to 173 billion.
Update: During the earnings call, CEO Dick Costolo addressed the issue of Twitter’s reach. He said the company is still focused on the experience of the “monthly active user base,” but he also said that its “total audience and reach represent a significant opportunity.”
