Twitter user growth stalled after big gains earlier this year

Last quarter, Twitter rode the wave of bored people stuck inside during the coronavirus pandemic to a big increase in “monetizable daily active users” (or mDAU). That wasn’t the case from July through September, the company announced today in its Q3 2020 earnings report — average mDAU for the quarter increased to 187 million, up from the 185 million reported last quarter. Still, the overall trend for Twitter remains encouraging, as the 187 million mDAU represented a 29 percent increase year-over-year.

Despite growing users last quarter, revenue took a big hit as advertisers pulled back their budgets in a big way. That trend reversed itself this time — Twitter’s quarterly revenue was $936 million, up 14 percent year-over-year. Compare that to Q2, when revenue dropped 19 percent year-over-year, and it’s clear that the coronavirus caused a huge pull-back in advertising that wasn’t nearly the same over the last few months.