The growth of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) has depreciated markedly in Europe and the United States, The New York Times reported, with its stock plummeting on Friday to its lowest closing price since the company went public.
However, the article also notes that Twitter’s increasing popularity in Asia and Latin America means that the company is still experiencing enormous growth in places like Indonesia, India, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, and that overall global twitter usage numbers continue to expand (users are projected to reach 227.5 million by the end of this year, and grow another 18.5 percent to 269.6 million in 2015, according to eMarketer).
Nevertheless, the article notes that, despite growth internationally, there remains great concern on Wall Street regarding Twitter’s domestic downturn. This is because advertising revenue, Twitter’s primary income-generating source, is reaped largely from its American and European operations, and many investors fear that advertising proceeds from Latin America and the Far East will not have the same potential.
The article also pays some attention to discrepancies in Twitter’s own user statistics, and those produced by the independent analysis company eMarketer.
Although eMarketer’s data is still follows the general trends announced by Twitter itself, its estimates of those Twitter members who actually regularly use the service are considerably lower than Twitter’s. To illustrate, eMarketer determined that Twitter had approximately 183 million active monthly users at the end of last year, whereas Twitter’s figure reaches to 241 million.
It seems that, like Facebook before it, Twitter’s peak, at least in the West, has been reached, and that a steady and inevitable downturn is unlikely to be turned around.
