Twitter Struggles to Reignite Its Growth Engine

Twitter’s third quarter earnings for 2018 come out today, and all eyes are on the monthly active users (MAUs) in the earning report. Shares in the company dropped by more than 20 percent in a single day after second quarter earnings in July revealed a dip of one million monthly active users. Shares have not been able to rebound, with shares trading at 33 percent of what they were prior to the Q2 earnings report.

Looking broadly at the MAU, Twitter has been unable to reaccelerate user growth in recent years, with monthly active users largely flatlined over the past 3 years. The social media platform stands at around 335 million as of second quarter numbers. By comparison, Facebook has managed to steadily increase monthly active users each month, with 38 million new active users added between Q1 and Q2 of 2018.