Twitter on Thursday released its consolidated financial results for the second quarter of the year, revealing that it was unsuccessful in adding new users to the platform and also experienced a significant decline in advertising revenue in the three-month period ending June 30. The San Francisco, California-based social media giant reported 328 million monthly active users in Q2 2017, the same figure that it attached to its report for the previous quarter. The firm’s advertising revenue in the said period amounted to $489 million, an eight percent decline compared to $535 million posted in Q2 2016. The online platform recorded the first revenue decline in its history last quarter but managed to keep investors relatively calm by adding nine million users. With its user acquisition efforts rates stagnating in the last three months and the advertising revenue still declining, the company’s shares are in a free fall, having dropped by ten percentage points immediately after its Q2 2017 report was made public.
It’s currently unclear whether the decrease in advertising revenue indicates that Twitter isn’t doing enough to keep advertisers happy or is simply a sign of times, with online behemoths Alphabet and Facebook seizing an increasingly large portion of the digital advertising market. Not all of the company’s ad-related metrics declined in the last three months, with its ad engagement rates growing by 95 percent year-on-year. This notable increase in user engagement apparently wasn’t enough to keep all of the company’s advertisers on the platform as marketing budgets are now seemingly transitioning from Twitter and moving to other services.
Twitter’s latest financial statement indicates that the social media company is still far from bouncing back from its recent issues in terms of performance that are aggravating a number of its investors, some of whom were even pushing for the firm to sell itself in late 2016. While Twitter’s Board of Directors reportedly gave in to those demands, it failed to find a suitable buyer and the company continues to operate on its own. It remains to be seen whether the online platform manages to improve its performance in the upcoming quarters, having recently hired a new Chief Financial Officer for a total of $22 million.