Twitter CEO Dick Costolo announced in the Q4 earnings report on Thursday that despite the slow user growth of the service, the company managed to generate a $479 million revenue, exceeding analysts’ expectations.
The social networking company reported that the service had grown by only four million for the last quarter of 2014, the lowest among all quarters for the year. By the end of 2014, Twitter's regular users closed in at 288 million, just short of the 3 million expected by the analysts.
Costolo remained positive despite the hitch, saying that Twitter's user base will grow by the end of the Q1 for 2015. He put part of the blame to the bug in Twitter's iOS 8 app.
Analysts are not buying the statement though since it is too early to say that the company will fully recover.
"Twitter is very much in its 'prove it' time period, and the results this quarter won't prove it," Robert Peck, an analyst at the brokerage firm SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, told the New York Times. "What we want to see: As we look into the first quarter, is Twitter going to see real traction from it for the rest of the year?"
Twitter is working double-time in making changes to further enhance its products and pull in more revenue. The company has launched the "Promoted Tweets" that will allow businesses to promote their products to more people outside the site. Current partners for the service are Flipboard and Yahoo Japan.
Costolo also confirmed rumors that Twitter has partnered with Google to make some tweets appear in Google's search results. Engineers for both companies are already working together, and the service is expected to go live after "several months."
With these new products in place, Forbes reported that investors are less worried now. Twitter might have a slow user growth, but the new products will definitely bring a much bigger audience base and more ad revenue.
