Twitter has soared beyond expectations to gain nine million new users in the past three months, the social media site announced in its latest financial results.
The increase was well above analyst predictions, which had anticipated user numbers to rise by around two million.
The company’s earnings report for the first quarter of this year provides a boost to the social platform, which has struggled in recent years to attract new users to the service and has been hit by controversies over its handling of online abuse.
The site reported monthly active users had risen to 328 million, up from 319 million in the last quarter, and a 6% increase on this time last year, while the platform’s recently established live video streaming service also reported 31% more interaction this quarter, with 45 million unique views across more than 800 hours of live video.
The firm’s chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey said: “We’re proud to report accelerating growth in daily active usage for the fourth consecutive quarter, up 14% year-over-year.
“We’re delivering on our goal to build a service that people love to use, every day, and we’re encouraged by the audience growth momentum we saw in the first quarter.
“While we continue to face revenue headwinds, we believe that executing on our plan and growing our audience should result in positive revenue growth over the long term.”
The company posted revenue of 548 million dollars (£427m) this quarter, down 8% on the 595 million dollars (£464m) reported in the same period last year.
The social media site’s chief operating officer Anthony Noto said: “We’re proud of our performance in Live after just six months – last quarter alone, we streamed more than 800 hours of live premium video and reached 45 million unique viewers, an increase of 31% from the previous quarter.
“We remain focused on our initiatives to grow revenue by simplifying our revenue product portfolio, communicating our progress to advertisers and re-allocating resources to our highest revenue generating priorities.”
