Twitter said Wednesday user growth picked up in the past quarter, offering an upbeat outlook despite a decline in revenue and another loss for the social network.
The first quarter results came in better than most forecasts, delivering an early pre-market lift for shares in Twitter, which has struggled to keep pace in the fast-moving world of social media.
The closely watched metric of monthly active users grew nine percent from the same period a year ago to 328 million, while daily active users rose 14 percent.
The net loss narrowed to $62 million from $80 million a year earlier for Twitter, which has never reported a profit.
Revenues meanwhile fell eight percent to $548 million — which would normally be troubling for a social media group, but the figure was not as bad as feared.
Twitter shares rallied nearly nine percent in pre-market trade, suggesting an easing of fears about the path forward for Twitter.
“We’re delivering on our goal to build a service that people love to use, every day, and we’re encouraged by the audience growth momentum we saw in the first quarter,” chief executive Jack Dorsey said in a statement.
“While we continue to face revenue headwinds, we believe that executing on our plan and growing our audience should result in positive revenue growth over the long term.”
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