Reporting its first quarter with no growth, Twitter is planning a series of interventions to maintain its market leading position.
But these interventions may take time to generate results, the social media company told investors yesterday in a briefing call regarding its quarterly results.
With revenue forecasts for quarter missing analysts’ expectations, Twitter shares dropped 2,5% – bringing the total share decline to 50% since July 2015.
Founder Jack Dorsey points out that the overall business, financial performance and outlook are strong.
“We’re confident that with disciplined execution, the growth trend in active usage will continue over time,” he says. “We spent the last six months structuring the organisation and our leadership team to move with greater agility and focus, reviewing the state of our service and strategy, learning from what we’ve shipped, and developing a stronger point of view about what we are and what we want to be.”
Dorsey says the global leadership team is aligned and committed to a plan for 2016.
“We’re focused now on what Twitter does best – live. Twitter is live: live commentary, live conversations, and live connections, whether it’s breaking news, entertainment, sports, or everyday topics, hearing about and watching a live event unfold is the fastest way to understand the power of Twitter.
“Twitter has always been considered a second screen for what’s happening in the world. And we believe we can become the first screen for everything that’s happening right now,” he adds. “By doing so, we believe we can build the planet’s largest daily connected audience.
“A connected audience is one that watches together, and can talk with one another in realtime. That’s what Twitter has provided for close to 10 years now, and it’s what we will continue to drive in the future.”
The company has identified five priorities in 2016 to serve this focus, Dorsey says.
“Number one, we’re going to refine our core service and make everything more intuitive.
“Number two, we’re going to invest in being a leader in live streaming video, filming off our lead with Periscope.
“Three, we’re going to give creators and influencers, the best tools to build and connect with our audiences.
“Four, we’re going to invest in making Twitter safer, so everyone can feel more empowered to speak freely.
“And fifth, we will support developers to build and grow their businesses with Twitter. Each is critical to strengthening our platform and audience around live.”
