June 7 (Reuters) – Twitter ( TWTR.N ) is gearing up for its most ambitious quarter of user growth yet, executives at the social media company’s consumer products division told staff on Tuesday.
Twitter is aiming to increase its monetized daily active users, or users who see ads, by 13 million this quarter, according to an internal meeting heard by Reuters.
It’s the highest goal the team has ever set, executives told staff.
They added that Twitter is on track to meet the goal and has currently achieved 8.5 million user growth, one of the best quarters of growth to date.
Shares of Twitter were up 1% in afternoon trading.
The San Francisco-based company is maintaining its ambition to attract new users even as its deal to be bought by billionaire Elon Musk remains uncertain.
Musk in a filing on Monday warned Twitter that he could walk away from the $44 billion deal if the company does not provide data to allow it to independently verify the percentage of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform. Read more
The company has said in public filings that spam and fake accounts represent less than 5% of its quarterly profitable daily active users.
A Twitter spokesperson declined further comment.
The war in Ukraine boosted user activity on Twitter at the end of the first quarter, but time spent on the platform fell 4% in the current quarter, executives said.
Twitter added 20 million users during the second quarter of 2020, its highest consecutive quarterly growth since at least 2019, as users flocked to the platform for news at the start of the pandemic.
Since then, the company has struggled to stay on track to meet its long-term goals for both user growth and revenue, prompting a hiring freeze and cost-saving measures. Read more
Twitter’s internal target of 13 million user growth beat Wall Street expectations, as analysts on average had expected growth of 9 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; additional reporting by Akash Sriram and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Mark Porter
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