Twitter blames issues with Apple's iOS 8 for loss of 4M new users [u]
Character-limited social network Twitter on Thursday announced a lower-than-expected number of monthly active users for its just-completed fourth quarter, a figure that the company blamed in part on problems in Apple's rollout of iOS 8.
Update: The issue was twofold, Costolo told BusinessInsider. 3 million active users were lost after Apple stopped auto-polling Twitter feeds for Safari's Shared Links feature, while a further 1 million were lost due to encryption changes in iOS 8 that caused trouble for some users attempting to log in.
During Twitter's quarterly conference call, CEO Dick Costolo said that an "unforeseen bug in the release of iOS 8 as it related to Twitter" was a drag on user growth, according to Bloomberg. "We moved on multiple fronts to minimize its impact but it wasn't a one-size-fits-all fix," he added, without going into more detail.
Twitter CFO Anthony Noto later quantified the loss, saying that the bug cost Twitter some 4 million new users. Those users could have bumped Twitter's monthly active users -- a closely-watched benchmark of growth for the company --?from the 288 million that it reported to the 292 million that Wall Street expected, though the miss was softened by strong earnings growth and a new search deal with Google.
It is unclear to which bug Costolo was referring, thought it has since apparently been fixed. "We obviously have a great relationship with Apple," Costolo said later in the call.
Twitter was one of Apple's first partners for social media integration in iOS, and remains the one with which Apple works most closely. Apple was briefly rumored to have shown interest in acquiring Twitter in 2009, and eventually purchased Twitter analysis firm Topsy in 2013.
Update: The issue was twofold, Costolo told BusinessInsider. 3 million active users were lost after Apple stopped auto-polling Twitter feeds for Safari's Shared Links feature, while a further 1 million were lost due to encryption changes in iOS 8 that caused trouble for some users attempting to log in.
To clarify from yesterday's call: there was no bug or issue with iOS 8. It is an issue on Twitter's side as users upgraded.
— TwitterIR (@TwitterIR) During Twitter's quarterly conference call, CEO Dick Costolo said that an "unforeseen bug in the release of iOS 8 as it related to Twitter" was a drag on user growth, according to Bloomberg. "We moved on multiple fronts to minimize its impact but it wasn't a one-size-fits-all fix," he added, without going into more detail.
Twitter CFO Anthony Noto later quantified the loss, saying that the bug cost Twitter some 4 million new users. Those users could have bumped Twitter's monthly active users -- a closely-watched benchmark of growth for the company --?from the 288 million that it reported to the 292 million that Wall Street expected, though the miss was softened by strong earnings growth and a new search deal with Google.
It is unclear to which bug Costolo was referring, thought it has since apparently been fixed. "We obviously have a great relationship with Apple," Costolo said later in the call.
Twitter was one of Apple's first partners for social media integration in iOS, and remains the one with which Apple works most closely. Apple was briefly rumored to have shown interest in acquiring Twitter in 2009, and eventually purchased Twitter analysis firm Topsy in 2013.
Comments
Considering Apple is responsible for ALL THE REST OF YOUR USERS too.
Wow.
Only going to hurt them worse.
Hashtags just aren't cool anymore.
Appatently he's blaming it on shared links in Safari that used to automatically request information from Twitter's servers. Now in iOS 8 it only updates when you go into that feature. The thing is Twitter should never have been counting the former as MAUs. If Safari does something in the background but I don't actively engage with it how can I be considered an active user?
How the **** does an iOS bug cause cause of the LOSS of 4 MILLION Twitter users? EVen if those users somehow had trouble signing up with iOS8, if they cared about the service they would have tried again some other way. Love how these companies use Apple as a scapegoat for all their woes.
What a crock of sh!t. If it were really a problem that Apple did, Twitter would have ZERO users. Nice way of trying to pass-off blame for your shoddy app to someone else Twitter. Maybe you should test your app a little more thoroughly next time?
Character-limited social network Twitter on Thursday announced a lower-than-expected number of monthly active users for its just-completed fourth quarter, a figure that the company blamed in part on problems in Apple's rollout of iOS 8.
Who cares? TWTR is up 9% in after-hours trading.
This means that Dick got a text message during the conference call that simply said "Don't make us go thermonuclear on you." after he tried to blame Apple.
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Way to man up, Mr. Costolo.
Being CEO means you only can blame one person for the shortcomings of your enterprise. Step in front of a mirror for a hint of who that man might be.
Now, now... let's not get carried away.
The article did say Google was always awesome and perfect. What more do you want?
This just in:
Stock price on GTFO up 80% after Twitter announcement.
How does Twitter make money? "Social media" has become exactly like television - a mind numbing time waster and counter-productive for 95% of all users.
From their SEC filing:
Revenue – Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 totaled $479 million, an increase of 97% compared to $243 million in the same period in 2013.
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Advertising revenue totaled $432 million, an increase of 97% year-over-year.
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Mobile advertising revenue was 88% of total advertising revenue.
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Data licensing and other revenue totaled $47 million, an increase of 105% year-over-year.
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International revenue totaled $164 million, an increase of 149% year-over-year.
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International revenue was 34% of total revenue.
Source: http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/displayfilinginfo.aspx?filingid=10454656&tabindex=2&type=html
In contrast with Google who makes most of their revenue from ad sales on desktop search, Twitter's advertising revenue is mostly from mobile devices.
There's an article that says Twitter "skyrockets" after explanation of why it lost users.
Character-limited social network Twitter...
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'Character limited', boy got that right!
I didn't mind the occasional Twitter spam, but like a couple months ago I started getting maybe 20 email spams a day from them so I had to go into the account settings and turn off everything. I get less spam from them now but still a few per day. Very annoying. I wish there was some way for them to realize that their spam has zero effectiveness with me. I have the Twitter account to notify our followers of upcoming developments and events which I use maybe every other week and no one ever complains. We have only around 200 followers in a very specialized niche, but there are zero people that I follow.