Twitter finally makes a profit, but fewer people are using it than thought
San Francisco/Bengaluru — On Thursday, Twitter reported its first quarterly net profit and topped Wall Street targets as video ad sales rose, but the number of people using the social network fell short of expectations as Twitter shut down fake accounts. Twitter’s previous inability to turn a profit had confounded investors given the company’s ubiquitous presence in the media and popularity among celebrities, athletes and politicians such as US President Donald Trump. In October, Twitter had signalled that the breakthrough was possible as it slashed expenses. Fourth-quarter adjusted profit and revenue both topped analysts’ targets. The company said it expected "to be GAAP-profitable for the full year 2018", referring to generally accepted accounting principles. Still, Twitter missed Wall Street targets for people using the service, reporting 330-million monthly active users for the quarter, a 4% increase from a year earlier but flat from the third quarter. Analysts on average had ex...
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