Twitter fails to add new users in last quarter of 2015

“Today, we’re excited to share a new timeline feature that helps you catch up on the best Tweets from people you follow”, a Twitter blog said.

Twitter forecast that it would make between $595 million and $610 million in revenue for its next quarter, which is Q1.

Twitter shares tumbled 13 percent in the minutes after the fourth-quarter results were announced, before strengthening to float just 4 percent below the regular session close at $14.98. It’s also viewed as a hotbed of abusive behavior, which intimidates both new and existing users.

The worst part is that if one excludes the number of SMS Fast followers ( people who use Twitter via SMS and don’t see ads) from the above number, the number of users actually declined from 307 million in the previous quarter to 305 million.

Essentially what this sounds like is a gussied up version of the “While You Were Gone” feature that Twitter introduced quite some time ago.

In the previous quarter, Twitter had 320-million monthly active users, and that number has not increased in the fourth quarter. “You have to remember the underlying reason why Twitter is considering such a wide range of changes to its core product in the first place: it’s too hard to use and that’s limiting user growth”.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet are expecting adjusted earnings of 12 cents a share, which would be flat compared with the same quarter a year earlier. Twitter says total MAUs are now back to Q3 levels, but it still took a dip – and it’s still not growing.

“With no increase in new users, but otherwise good financial performance, Twitter hasn’t yet shown how it can rise from the troubling spot of not being able to grow the business”, said Brian Blau, research director at Gartner.

But Dorsey remained optimistic.

The change to the timeline – as the main page is known – is also created to appeal to advertisers and brands by giving more prominence to high-quality tweets from their accounts, but they can not pay to have their tweets surface higher.

The lack of growth in user numbers has plunged the social network into crisis in recent months, with co-founder Dorsey returning to the company and around 8% of the company’s staff being cut.

Revenue rose 48.3 percent to $710.5 million in the quarter ended December 31. Users on iOS and Android devices can also turn this new feature on as long as they’ve already received the latest software update.

When the news of changes to the product was released, Twitter users complained.

However, Twitter isn’t throwing in the towel yet (of course), and has some plans to address the more confusing bits of its service.