Twitter goes into green, with some black

12 years after its launch and more than four years after it went public, Twitter finally managed a little black in in its red-emblazoned bottomline, as the micro-blogging site recorded its first ever profitable quarter, for the three months ended December 2017.Year-on-year, its net profit rose 155 per cent, at $91 million (Rs 585 crore).

However, Twitter's revenues last year fell by 3.4 per cent, compared to its revenues in 2016, after rising more than 14 per cent against its revenues in 2015.

Twitter's revenues from its global operations are gradually inching toward the 50 per cent mark, having risen by 10 percentage points over the last four years.

Twitter's advertising revenues recorded a decline of nine per cent in the nine months ended September 2017, which led to a decline in overall revenues compared to the year before.

Twitter's users, which determine its advertising sales potential, remained stagnant over the last two quarters even as the company has cracked down on fake accounts. In a bid to attract more people, it has doubled the character limit to 280, from 140 and kicked out accounts which were anti-women and anti-minorities.Twitter's monthly user base however, pales in comparison to Facebook, which was launched just two years before Twitter