Twitter Posts First Profit In Its History

Twitter has reported its first-ever quarterly profit, delivering a boost to shares of the social network which has been lagging for years against fast-growing rivals.

The San Francisco-based messaging service said it earned US$91 million in last three months of 2017, the first profit since going public in 2013.

Revenue was up 2 percent from a year ago to a better-than-expected $732 million, while the number of monthly active users rose modestly to 330 million.

Twitter shares surged 22 percent to $32.94 in pre-market trade on the news. The shares this month jumped above the 2013 offering price of $26 for the first time since late 2015.

The profitability marks a milestone for Twitter, which has lost money consistently since its public offering, sparking speculation on whether it needed to sell itself to keep operating.

While Twitter has built a solid core base of celebrities, politicians and journalists, it has failed to achieve the broader appeal of Facebook and other social platforms, hurting its ability to bring in ad revenues.

But the network has stepped up efforts to boost its user base and engagement, adding streaming video partnerships, doubling the character limit on tweets to 280 and making it easier to create "tweetstorms" by stringing messaging together. (AFP)