Twitter seems to be addressing its biggest challenge to attract new users but reported a quarterly revenue decline Wednesday, a first since going public.
Twitter reported that average monthly active users rose 6 percent from last year to 328 million. The number of daily users has been increasing at a faster pace each quarter for the past year, Twitter said.
Twitter said it had an average of 328 million monthly users during the first quarter, a 3 percent increase from 319 million during the previous quarter. By contrast, Facebook has 1.89 billion and Facebook-owned Instagram has 600 million monthly users as of December. More users, of course, mean more advertising revenue for the companies, since businesses try to reach as many eyeballs as possible.
Twitter said that some work to improve its product, such as showing people more relevant tweets at the top of their timelines, has attracted more visitors to the service.
The company reported a decline in revenue from the previous year. Its revenue was $548.3 million, down 8 percent. Net loss was $61.6 million, compared with a loss of $79.7 million, a year earlier.
As with Facebook, Twitter also has been pushing live video to keep users interested and engaged. This includes both user-generated content and live-streaming deals.
Besides Facebook and Instagram, Twitter is also vying for advertising revenue from Snap Inc., the owner of Snapchat.