Twitter user growth stalls as revenue slides

Social networking site Twitter, on Thursday, reported a 5% year-on-year increase in average monthly users to 328 million, unchanged from the previous quarter.

The group said that second quarter revenue totaled $574 million, a decrease of 5% year-over-year, while advertising revenue totaled $489 million, a decrease of  8% year-over-year, underlining the company’s challenge to monetise its network.

Bloomberg reported that shares in the US firm declined more than 9% in early trading, despite its quarterly revenue topping analysts’ projections.

Additional highlights:

• Data licensing and other revenue totaled $85 million, an increase of 26% year-over-year.
• US revenue totaled $335 million, a decrease of 7% year-over-year.
• International revenue totaled $239 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year.
• Total ad engagements increased 95% year-over-year.
• Cost per engagement (CPE) decreased 53% year-over-year.

“We achieved greater operating efficiency. Our GAAP net loss was $116 million. Excluding a $55 million cost-method investment impairment charge, we would have made progress toward GAAP profitability and further reduced our GAAP net loss. We also delivered better-than-expected adjusted EBITDA margins in Q2, despite the year-over-year decline in revenue,” the group said.

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