Twitter’s revenues soar

The San Francisco-based social media company had 288 million monthly users at the end of the fourth quarter, a rise of 20 per cent on a year earlier.

However, the pace of growth slowed in the final three months of the year due to changes in the way third-party apps integrate Twitter.

Revenues still leapt 97 per cent to 479 million US dollars (£312.6 million) in the October to December period, helping the site beat Wall Street expectations with net losses of 125 million (£81.6 million) for the quarter.

Shares surged 10 per cent in after-hours trading as the company said it expects to add a similar number of net users in the first quarter as it did in each of the first three quarters of 2014.

Advertising revenues per thousand timeline views reached 2.37 US dollars (£1.55) in the quarter, an increase of 60 per cent year on year.

Twitter shares have fallen by more than a third over the past year due to concerns about its ability to broaden its audience. They listed on Wall Street in November 2013 and more than doubled in value before falling back.

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that Twitter’s chief executive has taken personal responsibility for the social media website’s problems in dealing with abuse reported by users.

The acknowledgement from Dick Costolo came in an internal memo seen by technology website The Verge, in which he said the company should be embarrassed by the way it handles abuse and that it must take stronger action in the future.