Twitter user base expands to 284 million, but growth slows

The numbers, revealed on Monday as part of the company’s financial report for Q3, also suggest the rate of growth is slowing after Twitter added 16 million new users in the April-to-June period and 14 million in the quarter before that.

Among its current base 284 million users, Twitter said 80 percent currently log in from a mobile device, a new record for the San Francisco-based company.

Income for the latest quarter hit $361 million, more than double what it made during the same quarter a year earlier, and up $49 million on the previous three-month period. However, the company is still to turn a profit, with losses for Q3 coming in at $175.5 million – that’s $30.5 million more than what it lost in Q2.

Focusing on the revenue figures, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in an earnings call with analysts the company had experienced “another very strong quarter,” adding, “I’m happy with the strategies and the quality of the work we’re doing.”

However, in a note of caution, he said that given Twitter’s “significant aspirations and the breadth of the opportunity” in front of it, it was “more critical than ever that we increase our overall pace of execution,” suggesting the microblogging service needs to move faster with the implementation of new features and tools for both users and advertisers.

The company has been going through something of an executive shake-up in recent months, with at least three high-level members quitting their posts. These inlclude former COO Ali Rowghani who was rumored to have fallen out with CEO Dick Costolo over a bid by the Twitter boss to remove some of Rowghani’s responsibilities.

[Source: Twitter, WSJ]