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Expect no ‘meaningful’ user growth ‘for a considerable amount of — Twitter CFO

Most of the growth in the second quarter came from outside the U.S. with 250 million.

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Twitter has just reported its Q2 earnings, and it’s beaten expectations.

“People around the globe know of Twitter, but it’s not clear why they should use Twitter“, Mr Dorsey added.

He said, “Our Q2 results show good progress in monetization, but we are not satisfied with our growth in audience“.

Total revenue rose 61 percent to $502.4 million. Twitter reported an EPS figure of $0.07.

Dorsey returned to lead the company earlier this month as interim chief executive, replacing Dick Costolo. Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, who is also CEO at payments startup Square, is now filling in as interim CEO.

The sell-off happened after Twitter Finance Chief Anthony Noto told investors not to expect any meaninful growth in the size of Twitter’s audience for a “considerable” amount of time. “And as result non-users continue to ask, Why should I use Twitter?”

Shares in Twitter slumped more than 11% in after-hours trading. After jumping in the first minutes following the release of the earnings report, the stock did an about-face and shed more than 10pc to $32.88. In the same quarter last year, it posted a loss of US$145 million, or US$0.24 per share. It also kept its high-end outlook for full-year revenue at $2.27 billion and bumped up its high-end Ebitda forecast to $540 million.

“In essence it must go from being a one product company to an ecosystem and this will require a radical shift in strategy from where the company is today”, Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor said. The numbers were up 2.6 percent to 316 million users, but that missed analysts’ expecations. Analysts had expected lower revenue of $487.4m.

At least in this quarter, Twitter showed some plans to grow out its service. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were forecasting $481 million.

The company’s stock was up by about 5 percent after the market closed. Chances are that the company will shed some light on the ongoing search for its new CEO during the earnings call for 2Q.

Twitter has been in the midst of a leadership shakeup this year with a series of high-level executive leaving the company.

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Twitter’s closing share price on Tuesday was $36.54, a fall of almost 4% in 12 months.

Jack Dorsey is the interim CEO of Twitter the company he co-founded