After losing money year after year, Twitter has finally managed to post a profitable quarter for Q4 2017. Showing $91 million in profit alongside rising revenue projections brings new hope back to the social media platform. Total revenue has risen to $732 million for the quarter, up 2 percent from the same time last year.
However, there is still a major problem for Twitter even though it has received some good news. The active pool of users has gone down. Monthly users in the US are slowly slipping away. A decline from 69 million down to 68 million monthly users with no signs of new users trickling in could spell trouble in the not so distant future.
The increase in tweet length to 280 characters is believed to have increased the amount of time individual users spend on the platform, but has not encouraged previous users to return or become more active. There is still an ongoing battle for Twitter to figure out how to attract new users that will generate content.
The one plus side for Twitter is the $4.4 billion in reserve funds that the company has available. Should there be problems in the coming years, there is enough money around to keep the company fully operational while issues are resolved.
Total revenue for the 2017 fiscal year was $2.4 billion. Compared to 2016, this is a 3 percent decline. The decrease is attributed to the shrinking number of active users and also to the hesitation of advertisers to place ads near where questionable content may exist.