Twitter sees a 6% growth in monthly active users
Twitter has seen an increase in its monthly active users from 319 million in Q4 2016 to 328 million in Q1 2017, a growth of approximately 6%, according to the firm's latest earnings release. Twitter’s daily usage grew 14% YoY, and reduced its 2016 Q4 net loss of $167m to a Q1 net loss of $62m. The social media giant expects its revenue growth to “meaningfully lag” behind audience growth this year, as it continues to tweak the platform to ensure user-friendliness and a reduction in abuse.

Twitter has finally broken out of its negative earnings cycle with signs that its user numbers are on the rise.

The microblogging social network said its tally of monthly active users (MAU) has increased from 319 million in Q4 to 328 million in Q1, representing growth of around six percent. The site's average daily active usage grew 14 percent year over year.

Looking at the rest of the numbers, the social network posted a Q1 net loss of $62 million, or 9 cents per share. That's cut down from a Q4 net loss of $167 million, or 23 cents per share.

Non-GAAP earnings were 11 cents per share on revenue of $548 million, down eight percent year over year.

Wall Street was looking for Q1 earnings of a penny a share with $512 million in revenue. Despite the revenue decline, Twitter's shares shot up more than 11 percent in pre-market trading.

Elsewhere on the balance sheet, Twitter said revenue from its data licensing and other revenue is up $10 million year over year, although advertising revenue dropped 11 percent from the previous year. Video was Twitter's best performing ad format in Q1.

Twitter said it expects overall revenue growth to "meaningfully lag" audience growth throughout 2017.

Twitter is still working on ways to make its platform more user friendly, which includes a major focus on reducing abuse on the platform.

"We've made meaningful progress toward identifying and removing accounts that demonstrate abusive behavior and, as a result, we're seeing less abuse reported across the service," Twitter said in its earnings release.

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