Twitter Q3 results disappoint ahead of its first television ad campaign
Twitter added only four million new monthly users in Q3 2015, according to its report released yesterday. The stock fell as much as 12% in after-hours trading on the back of the report, which showed revenues of $569m, and a net loss of $132m. Twitter's Q4 results also look set to disappoint, as the company expects revenue to reach between $696m and $710m, while analysts had estimated revenues of nearly $740m. Anthony Noto, Twitter Chief Financial Officer, said that these disappointing figures where due to limited growth in advertising. It is also worth noting that mobile advertising revenue represented 86% of total ad growth for Q3. These results put Instagram on track to overtake Twitter in 2017, however, Twitter immediately launched its first ever television advertising campaign; part of its marketing strategy to boost its new Moments feature. The 30-second advert featured during the World Series and was aimed at sports enthusiasts.

Twitter has announced its latest quarterly results with revenues of $569m for the three months to 30 September equating to a 58 per cent year on year rise, but also resulting in a net loss of $132m, as marketers continue to doubt the efficacy of the social network as an advertising medium.

The results, the first quarterly earnings release after co-founder Jack Dorsey was confirmed as its full-time CEO, also revealed that Twitter’s total average monthly active users (MAUs) numbered 320 million, a rise of 11 per cent year on year with mobile MAUs amounting to 80 per cent of this figure.

Advertising revenue for the period totalled $513m, an increase of 60 per cent year-over-year, according to the release, with ads served on mobile devices amounting to 68 per cent of this total. Revenues from data licensing were $56m in total accounted for the remainder of its income during the period, equating a to a 37 per cent year on year increase.

A release detailing the results carries a statement from Dorsey, which read: “We continued to see strong financial performance this quarter, as well as meaningful progress across our three areas of focus: ensuring more disciplined execution, simplifying our services, and better communicating the value of our platform.”

“We’ve simplified our roadmap and organization around a few big bets across Twitter, Periscope, and Vine that we believe represent our largest opportunities for growth.”

The figures revealed a loss of $132m during the period, although this did represent an improvement compared to a loss of $175m during the same period12 months earlier.

Additionally, Twitter also forecast that revenue for the coming quarter would be in the range of $695m to $710m. The social network also used the release to highlight its progress with improving its advertising services including the launch of video auto-play on all devices, as well as the expansion of its self-service advertising platforms to over 200 countries, in addition to the further roll out of its Twitter Audience Platform (formerly the Twitter Publisher Network).

Dorsey and fellow members of the Twitter leadership team are set to face questions from Wall Street investors on its quarterly earnings call later this evening.