With millions of active users, Twitter has been a popular name for over a decade now. Despite its popularity, there has always been speculation surrounding the social media giant’s profitability.
While Twitter has undoubtedly revolutionized the way we communicate and share information, the question remains – Is Twitter Profitable?
In this article, we will delve deeper into the financials of Twitter and attempt to answer this burning question once and for all.
Twitter overview
| Launch date | 21 March 2006 |
| HQ | San Francisco, California |
| People | Linda Yaccarino (CEO), Jack Dorsey (co-founder) |
| Owner | Elon Musk |
| Business type | Private |
| Industry | Social networking |
About Twitter
Twitter is a microblogging platform that was launched in the year 2006.
When it was first launched, its defining feature was the tight limit placed on each post which was popularly known as “Tweet.”
The company was formed by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Noah Glass, and Biz Stone, and the site originally used SMS to send tweets on the network.
Today, people use Twitter to get the latest brand updates, communicate, and share their views with politicians or celebrities.
Since Tweets can be delivered to users in real time, they might seem like instant messaging to novice users, but any Tweet made on the platform stays there permanently and can be searched.
History of Twitter
As mentioned earlier, Twitter was formed in 2006 by four former Odeo employees.
The idea behind creating Twitter was to be able to send and receive messages for a small group of people.
Twitter saw its first hit when users could see real-time tweets that were hitting the network in 2007. From there, the platform grew and saw the platform hitting 300 million monthly active users.
Here are some other notables of Twitter then on:
2012: It saw 100 million users posting 340 million tweets daily.
2013: Twitter has become one of the 10 most visited websites.
2013: It files for IPO.
2019: Twitter sees more than 330 million active users.
2022: Elon Musk tries to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, and the acquisition gets finalized in October.
2023: To allow users to access and trade cryptocurrencies and stocks, Twitter partners with eToro and makes Linda Yaccarino the new CEO of Twitter.
Is Twitter Profitable As A company?
Despite its huge popularity, Twitter is not profitable. In the year 2022, Twitter made revenue of $4.4 billion, showing a decrease of 12% from last 2021, and generated a net loss of $221.41 million.
Advertising brought a majority of its revenue with approximately $4 billion (90%), followed by data licensing and others.
Consequently, in the second quarter of 2022, Twitter’s expenses and costs rose 31%, resulting in an operating loss of $344 million.
Twitter’s Annual Revenue (2012-2022)
As you can see Twitter made $4.4 billion in revenue in 2022 showing an 11% decrease from the previous year’s revenue.
Has Twitter Ever Been Profitable?
Since Twitter is one of the most widely used platforms, it’s not being profitable comes as a shock to many. So has Twitter ever been profitable?
Twitter had only recently become profitable, and then it went back to making losses.
The first time Twitter ever became profitable was in 2018, when it generated net profits of $1.2 billion. This was followed by another year of profitability when it generated net profits of $1.4 billion in 2019 and total revenue of $3.4 billion.
Prior to this, Twitter had never made a profit, mostly because it struggled to monetize its user base and also had a hard time managing its expenses.
Twitter’s Profit/Loss (2012-2022)
Twitter Users
In 2022, Twitter had 368 million monthly active users.
| Year | Users in millions |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 40 |
| 2011 | 85 |
| 2012 | 151 |
| 2013 | 218 |
| 2014 | 271 |
| 2015 | 304 |
| 2016 | 313 |
| 2017 | 310 |
| 2018 | 298 |
| 2019 | 312 |
| 2020 | 347 |
| 2021 | 362 |
| 2022 | 401 |
List of Most Followed Accounts On Twitter
Ex-president of the U.S. Barak Obama has the most number of followers on Twitter.
Even Elon Musk has been seeing a continuous rise in his number of followers on Twitter for over two years now.
| Account | Followers (mm) |
|---|---|
| @barackobama | 131 |
| @justinbieber | 114 |
| @katyperry | 108 |
| @rihanna | 106 |
| @cristiano | 99 |
| @taylorswift13 | 90 |
| @ladygaga | 84 |
| @ElonMusk | 82 |
| @narendramodi | 78 |
| @theellenshow | 77 |
Users of Twitter Vs Competitors
As you can see, Facebook & YouTube has the most number of users, and Twitter has the least number of users among these social media platforms.
Wrap Up
In conclusion, Twitter is not profitable as of now, and the possibility of it making any profits this year seems bleak under the floundering ownership of Elon Musk.
Will the company become profitable once again? Only time will tell.
We hope you found this article on “Is Twitter Profitable” useful.
FAQs
Will Twitter be profitable in 2023?
It is estimated that Twitter’s advertisement income will fall by 28% in 2023 as the platform struggles under the ownership of Elon Musk.
Is Twitter losing users?
Twitter saw a 7% year-over-year drop in traffic in March this year.
In addition to this, Twitter’s Android app’s daily active users saw a drop of 9.8%, and its unique visitors saw a drop of 3.3% in March.
And that’s not it. In the U.S., Twitter’s monthly active users dropped by 15% on iOS and 14% on Android.
What is the future of Twitter?
Twitter is struggling under the ownership of Elon Musk. In 2022, Twitter generated only $4.4 billion in revenue, which showed an 11% decrease from 2021.
Since many advertisers have already left the platform, the financial performance of Twitter is expected to get worse by the end of this year.
Amit Gupta is an experienced expert in digital marketing and co-founder of DrFranchises. With more than 11 years of knowledge in franchise digital marketing, SEO, email marketing, and social media marketing, Amit has helped many brands achieve incredible success online. As a passionate entrepreneur and owner of 7 franchises, he continues to study franchise models, looking at costs, revenue, and profitability to guide brands toward profitable growth. When he’s not working on digital marketing, Amit enjoys spending time playing with his beloved dog.