Everyone loves Twitter, journalists, athletes, actors, influencers and other marketers, and even (unfortunately?) politicians. Happy to see them starting to turn the corner after so many unprofitable years.
The company topped analysts’ average sales estimates in the fourth quarter and for the first time reported a real profit, a milestone in Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey’s turnaround effort. Monthly active users were little changed from the prior quarter at 330 million, a lower-than-projected total that the company attributed in part to stepped-up efforts to reduce spam, malicious activity and fake accounts.
The report adds to positive momentum in recent months for Twitter, which spent the second half of 2017 explaining how Russian-linked accounts — including automated bots — influenced content on its platform around the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Dorsey, who also runs Square Inc., has been working to broaden Twitter from a microblogging site into a destination for users to see “what’s happening now” by striking live-streaming partnerships with news outlets and sports leagues.