Twitter surprises investors

San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. posted a revenue of $502 million (454.7 million euros) in the second quarter, an increase of 61 percent year on year, the company reported Wednesday.

The jump was more than most analysts had expected but it still represented the lowest quarterly revenue growth since the social media company went public in November 2013.

Twitter was still operating at a loss of $136.7 million in the April-June period. That was slightly lower than a year earlier, when the company reported a loss of $144.6 million.

Interim CEO Jack Dorsey said that while the results show "good progress in monetization," the company is "not satisfied" with the growth of its audience.

Not enough users

On average, Twitter had 316 million monthly active users in the second quarter, up 15 percent year-on-year but up less than 3 percent from the first quarter of this year.

User growth has been an ongoing challenge for Twitter, as it tries to make its service a mass-market product rather than a niche short-messaging service popular with journalists, celebrities and young people.

In New York, Twitter's shares rose 5.7 percent to $38.61 in after-hours trading. Twitter shares have increased roughly 2 percent since the beginning of the year and have been trading near a 52-week low. They closed Tuesday at $36.54, a decline of nearly 4 percent in the last 12 months.

Twitter shares had risen more than 5 percent ahead of the release of the quarterly figures after markets closed in New York on Tuesday, but they fell in post-close trading.

bea/cjc (AP, dpa)