SAN FRANCISCO _ Twitter's stock on Tuesday tumbled more than 9 percent in after-hours trading after the company missed Wall Street's revenue expectations in the second quarter. The tech firm did however report earnings that were better than expected and grew its number of users.
From April to June, the company raked in $602 million in sales, which is lower than the $607 million that analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters predicted. Revenue in the second quarter increased by about 20 percent compared to the same period last year.
"We're seeing a continuation of the trends discussed last quarter with less overall advertiser demand than expected," Twitter said in a letter to shareholders on Tuesday.
The company posted a loss of 15 cents per share, which was better than the loss of 17 cents per share expected. Excluding certain expenses, Twitter earned 13 cents per share, higher than the estimates of 10 cents per share.
The tech firm's quarterly earnings come about a year since Twitter founder Jack Dorsey returned to run the struggling social media company.
Dorsey, who also runs mobile payment company Square, stepped in as Twitter's interim CEO in July 2015 and accepted the permanent job in October.
Since then, the tech firm has faced layoffs and a number of executive departures, but it also has made product changes and hired new employees. Competing with Facebook, Twitter has also been ramping up its live video efforts and partnered with various sports leagues and media outlets to broadcast games. It's also made small tweaks to the website's 140-character limit and timeline along with releasing a new feature called Moments, which is meant to make it easier to follow events.
The company, which has been criticized in the past for failing to tell its own story, also started rolling out a new marketing campaign this week to show that Twitter is "where you go to see what's happening everywhere in the world right now."
Twitter now has 313 million monthly active users, up from 310 million in the previous quarter.
Some analysts don't think these efforts are enough.
Bob Peck, an analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, has said that it's inevitable that another company will purchase Twitter if the tech firm doesn't make enough improvements. Peck has said though he thinks it's "highly unlikely" that the acquisition will happen this year.
Speculation that Twitter might be sold to another company has also heighten since Microsoft announced in June it was purchasing business-oriented social network LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.
Twitter's stock closed down 1 percent on Tuesday at $18.45 per share.
