Twitter's Q2 ad revenues grow 129% to $277m

Dick Costolo: Twitter's chief executive is committed to broadening social network's appeal
Dick Costolo: Twitter's chief executive is committed to broadening social network's appeal

Twitter has beaten analysts' expectations and boosted Q2 revenues by 124% year on year to $312m (£184m), although the social network made a loss of $145m (£86m), up from $42m (£28m) in 2013.

The performance has been welcomed by analysts, who were concerned that Twitter’s growth had been stalling.

Twitter’s revenue boost for the three months ending 30 June, was driven by a hike in advertising income of 129% to $277m (£164m), with mobile accounting for 81% of the total.

Traffic and engagement with the social network received a boost too. The average number of monthly active users (MAUs) hit 271 million as of 30 June, up 24% year on year. Ad revenues per thousand timeline views reached $1.60 (94p) in the period, an increase of 100% compared to Q2 in 2013.

Mobile is accounting for much more traffic, Twitter said, reaching 211 million MAUs at the end of Q2, up 29% from last year and now accounting for 78% of its total user base; while timeline views reached 173 billion, up 15%.

The reporting period included the launch of a number of products, many built around the World Cup in Brazil. They included real-time scoring, push notifications, event and match timelines and a voting ballot. It also enabled Vine users to send private messages within the app.

According to eMarketer Twitter is boosting its share of UK digital advertising, at 0.7% in 2013 and expected to reach 1.24% this year.

Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, said: "Our strong financial and operating results for the second quarter show the continued momentum of our business.

"We remain focused on driving increased user growth and engagement, and by developing new product experiences, like the one we built around the World Cup, we believe we can extend Twitter's appeal to an even broader audience."

Aside from advertising, data licensing and other revenues totalled $35m (£21m), up 90% year on year; while international revenue hit $102m ($60m), up 168%, accounting for 33% of total revenues.

Twitter also closed a number of deals in Q2, including the acquisition of social data provider Gnip, while it drew agreements for a number of other deals, including the acquisition of TapCommerce and video-editing platform SnappyTV.

Ad revenues were helped by various new tools, including mobile app promotions, which let app developers generate installs via the social network; and website cards, which let advertisers embed web content within a tweet so that traffic is driven to a relevant part of their website.

The results resulted in Twitter’s share value jumping 30%, thanks to a better-than-expected performance.

In its outlook for Q3, Twitter is forecasting revenues between $330m (£195m) and $340m (£201m).

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