Twitter admits 'overstating' user numbers since 2019

Twitter admitted to overstating its audience figures by almost 2 million users for almost three years, as it reported its first quarterly results since the social media company agreed to a $44 billion buyout from Tesla chief Elon Musk.

According to Financial Times, it is the second time that Twitter has miscalculated its user numbers, after discovering in 2017 that a similar error had gone unnoticed for three years.

The latest mistake was revealed just days after the top microblogging site agreed on a leveraged buyout by Musk. The entrepreneur has hinted at plans to reshape Twitter’s business model, which at present relies on advertising for more than 90 per cent of its revenues.

Read more: Twitter sees mass deactivations as Elon Musk takes over

Given the deal, the report said, Twitter’s first-quarter earnings report offered minimal commentary and did not include any guidance for the rest of the year. The company is also forgoing its usual conference call with analysts.

First-quarter revenues of $1.2 billion came in slightly below Wall Street’s forecasts, which Twitter blamed on “headwinds associated with the war in Ukraine”.

However, Twitter’s monetisable daily active users (mDAU), its unique metric for tracking its audience, came in better than investors expected at 229 million, with year-on-year growth of 6.4 per cent in the US and 18.1 per cent in the rest of the world.

According to the report, net income jumped to $513 million, thanks to a one-off benefit from the $1 billion sales of its mobile advertising unit MoPub to AppLovin, which closed in January.

Shares in Twitter rose about 1 per cent to $49.05 in early trading, below the $54.20 per share price at which Musk has agreed to buy the company.

Twitter also revealed what it described as an “error” introduced in the first quarter of 2019 that “resulted in an overstatement of mDAU” that went undiscovered for almost three years.