Twitter Cuts 9% Of Workforce As Revenue Growth Slows

The company is working on ways of making the Timeline, (currently) the heart of Twitter, into a more personal experience, with special-interest views around, say, your favorite sports teams, or the political party you support, as well as more conversational Tweets from your social graph.

The company said it planned to cut 350 jobs, or roughly 9 percent of its global workforce, the beginnings of an attempt to revamp the company and become profitable.

As a result of this news, the value of Twitter’s shares declined by 5% at the end of last week, leaving it in a vulnerable position.

Twitter could cut around 8 percent of employees, or about 300 people, sources told Bloomberg.

That marked modest progress after more than a year of essentially stagnant user numbers for Twitter, even as Facebook and its Instagram photo-sharing app have continued to blow past Twitter, with monthly active user bases of 1.7 billion and 500 million, respectively. The news prompted Twitter shares to fall more than 5%, while Salesforce shares were up 5.2% at close of trade in NY. That’s around the same amount of people the site laid off a year ago when co-founder Jack Dorsey rejoined the team as CEO, a move many hoped would turn the faltering company around.

Microblogging service Twitter announced on Thursday that it would cut about 9 per cent of its workforce after reporting a sharp slowdown in quarterly revenue growth.

The company’s net loss narrowed to $US102.9 million, or 15 cents per share, in the third quarter, from $US131.7 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.

With that out of the way, CFO Anthony Noto talked up the early response to its live Thursday Night Football video streams.

The reductions of staff and services were blunted somewhat by the backdrop of third-quarter revenue growth that slowed sharply but topped analysts’ expectations.

In its earnings statement, Twitter announced revenue of $616m (€564m) for the third quarter, up 8pc year-over-year and above its previously forecasted range of $590m to $610m.

There have been repeated rumours over the past few months that companies like Microsoft, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Japanese telco Softbank, Salesforce and Disney are set to bid for Twitter.

Revenue increased to $616 million in the three months ending September 30, beating analysts’ forecasts for $605 million. Twitter plans to expand further syndication of the live services as well as ensure the same advertising is reaching users both logged in and logged out.

The company also “did benefit meaningfully” from traffic when it offered videos of the presidential debates. “We’re focused on building the most useful, open and comprehensive news network on the planet”, Dorsey said.

Mallin said Twitter is still struggling to define what it wants to be: Is it a media company, is it a news organization or is it something altogether different?

“The restructuring allows us to continue to fully fund our highest priorities, while eliminating investment in non-core areas and driving greater efficiency”, the company said in its report to investors.