 "Photo: Reuters")
Twitter has grown by two million monthly active users in the fourth quarter, finishing the year with 319 million worldwide, media reports said.
According to a report in Recode on Thursday, the spectacle of the US presidential election was Twitter's best material in years and made the service a crucial source for direct news.
For Twitter, it was the slowest quarter all year for user growth. Its US user growth, where it has 67 million monthly active users, was actually zero.
This is in contrast to the Facebook where the user growth is accelerating despite its larger size.
According to Twitter's COO Anthony Noto, Trump sparks "conversation and discussion" on Twitter, but chalked up Twitter's small user growth during the quarter to "product changes and marketing", not the election.
Trump's rise and other news events are making Twitter more addictive and engaging for its users.
"The whole world is watching Twitter. While we may not be currently meeting everyone's growth expectations, there is one thing that continues to grow and outpace our peers: Twitter's influence and impact," Jack Dorsey, chief executive, Twitter, was quoted as saying.
According to a report in Verge, Twitter's revenue growth came in at just 1%, a far cry from the 48% year-over-year growth Twitter reported during the same period in 2016.
