Social media giant reports disappointing Q1 sales

folarin okunola

April 29, 2015 8:34 AM

The social network was quick to warn that the negative impact on it was expected and may continue for the rest of the financial year.

Twitter said its disappointing sales were expected.

Twitter reported revenue much lower than was expected for the first three months of the year, saying that its new products didn’t sell as well as was initially forecast.

The social network was quick to warn that the negative impact on it was expected and may continue for the rest of the financial year.

“It’s still early days for these products,” Twitter chief executive DickCastolo said.

Twitter posted revenues of about $436 million, which is below the figures that were forecast, but up 74% year-on-year.

It also reported loss of $163 million which is also an increase from the same period last year, when it lost $132 million.

On a better note, the site’s monthly users saw an 18% increase, bringing the number to 302 million users. Castolo said the firm remained confident in the site’s “long-term opportunity”.

"We have a strong pipeline that we believe will drive increased value for direct response advertisers in the future," he said.

The company also confirmed that it was buying marketing technology firm TellApart, and announced that it had made a deal with Google to improve its advertising performance measurement.

Twitter shares fell 18% after the results were released earlier than expected, before the US markets closed.

folarin okunola