Twitter Shows Strong Q3 Revenue But User Growth Slows

Twitter continued its Wall Street-beating financial performance today, announcing $361 million in third-quarter revenue, but the company continues to be dogged by slow user growth and the stock slipped in early after-hours trading.

Twitter added 13 million monthly active users, pushing its total to 284 million, but analysts had hoped for more from a network that is perceived to be struggling to ramp up its growth. The company added 16 million users in the second quarter, a figure helped by the popularity of the FIFA World Cup. Without that giant real-time event draw, Twitter’s user growth dropped from 6.2% to 4.7%. The stock, which closed at $48.56, was down more than 8% in after-hours trading.

The financial results continue to be strong; the $361 million in third-quarter revenue is $50 million more than in reported for the second quarter and 114% higher than last year’s third quarter total. Analysts had forecast revenue of $351 million, so it marked a continuation of Twitter’s streak of beating expectations.

“We had another very strong financial quarter,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in a release. “I’m confident in our ability to build the largest daily audience in the world, over time, by strengthening the core, reducing barriers to consumption and building new apps and services.”

More important numbers:

• Average mobile monthly average users were about 80%  of the total, or about 227 million.
• Advertising revenue totaled $320 million, an increase of 109% year-over-year.
• Timeline views reached 181 billion, an increase of 14% year-over-year.
• Advertising revenue per thousand timeline views reached $1.77 in the third quarter of 2014, an increase of 83% year-over-year.
• Mobile advertising revenue was 85% of total advertising revenue.
• Data licensing and other revenue totaled $41 million, an increase of 171% year-over-year.
• International revenue totaled $121 million, an increase of 176% year-over-year.
• International revenue was 34% of total revenue.