Twitter revenue doubles in quarter

Its third-quarter average monthly active users rose 23 per cent to 284 million

(GETTY IMAGES)

Twitter said on Monday its third quarter revenue more than doubled - but slightly slower growth in active users and a soft revenue forecast for the fourth quarter caused its shares to fall 9 per cent in after hours trading.

Twitter’s third-quarter revenue of $361 million easily beat analysts’ average forecasts of $351.4 million.

But its projected fourth-quarter revenue of between $440 million and $450 million, compared to analysts’ predictions of around $448.8 million, disappointed the lofty expectations of some investors.

Its third-quarter average monthly active users rose 23 per cent to 284 million, but that was down slightly from a 24 per cent rise in the second quarter.

Dick Costolo, chief executive of Twitter, was nonetheless upbeat, saying: "I'm confident in our ability to build the largest daily audience in the world, over time, by strengthening the core, reducing barriers to consumption and building new apps and services.”

Twitter’s closely watched “timeline views” - which measure user engagement - rose 14 per cent to about 181 billion in the third quarter, but this too was slightly below some analysts’ expectations.

“If the company (Twitter) can’t get more people engaged with its site more often, marketers might shift their focus elsewhere,” Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester Research, told Bloomberg News.

“Twitter simply hasn’t changed much over the past nine years - while it has enormous notoriety, that hasn’t translated into an enormous user base.”