When was Twitter's biggest growth spurt?
Social media platform has garnered more attention than ever in the Trump era
CyberScout chairman and founder Adam Levin discusses the Twitter bitcoin hack targeting high-profile accounts; many people are not as ‘cyber-hygienic’ as they should be when working from home, he says.<br><br>
Twitter Inc. reported the largest growth on record in monetizable daily users as its audience hunkered down at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was still unable to turn a profit in the three months through June.
The San Francisco-based social media platform lost $1.2 billion, or an adjusted $1.39 per share, in the second quarter as revenue fell 19 percent from a year ago to $683.4 million. Wall Street analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting a breakeven quarter on an adjusted basis and revenue of $707.5 million.
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The number of monetizable daily active users grow to 186 million, up 34 percent from a year ago.
"Our product work is paying off, with tremendous growth in audience and engagement,” CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement.
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Although engagement was up, global ad sales, which account for 82 percent of total revenue, fell 23 percent to $562 million.
Twitter attributed the drop to the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest that swept across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd. The company said ad spending was down 15 percent during the last three weeks of June.
Meanwhile, expenses rose just 5 percent, touching $807 million, as the company scaled back spending and cut costs amid the pandemic. Twitter expects costs to increase at an annualized rate of 10 percent or more in the third quarter.
Dorsey also addressed last week's hack of high-profile accounts by intruders seeking Bitcoin, noting the company "moved quickly" in response.
Twitter has since taken additional steps to "improve resiliency against targeted social engineering attempts, implemented numerous safeguards to improve the security of our internal systems," and is working with law enforcement, he said.
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Twitter shares rose 15 percent this year through Wednesday, outperforming the S&P 500's 1.4 percent gain.