Twitter Inc (ticker: TWTR) investors were hoping that the company’s surprise jump in users in the first quarter was a sign the company was entering a new stage of growth. On Thursday, those investors were sorely disappointed.
Twitter shares plummeted 12 percent in early trading after the social media giant reported no growth in monthly active users in the second quarter.
Twitter reported second quarter earnings of 12 cents per share on revenue of $574 million. Both numbers handily topped consensus analyst estimates of 5 cents and $536.7 million, respectively.
However, Twitter shares tanked after the company reported only 328 million monthly active users, in line with its first quarter total and 1 million short of Wall Street forecasts. Twitter’s U.S. monthly user count declined from 70 million in the first quarter to 68 million in the second quarter.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey focused on comparisons to the second quarter of 2016 rather than this year’s first quarter.
“Monthly active usage increased 5 percent year-over-year and daily active usage increased 12 percent year-over-year, marking the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth,” Dorsey said. “We’re strengthening our execution, which gives us confidence that our product improvements will continue to contribute to meaningful increases in daily active usage.”
Twitter’s growth struggles were amplified in the eyes of investors after rival Facebook (FB), which has a much larger user base than Twitter, reported another huge jump in users in the second quarter. Earlier this year, Facebook eclipsed the 2 billion user mark for the first time.
“You have zero user growth [at Twitter] versus Facebook reporting 70 million new users,” Aegis Capital internet analyst Victor Anthony says. “It’s…
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