Twitter Inc. added users through the holiday quarter and said it continued to add more in January, a month when it booted one of its most prominent users: former President Donald Trump.
The company said Tuesday that user growth might slow this year compared with the early months of the coronavirus pandemic—when many people started to spend more time online and on social media—and that Apple Inc.’s pending privacy changes could have a modest impact on its advertising business.
Twitter said it gained more daily users in January than the average number it has added in that month over the past four years, but the company declined to share more details. Twitter doesn’t normally provide guidance on user growth for the current quarter but said it made an exception due to unusual circumstances, referring to Mr. Trump’s suspension from the platform and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
The company didn’t discuss the specific impact of Mr. Trump’s absence on advertising, its main source of revenue. But in an interview Ned Segal, Twitter’s finance chief, indicated the company’s decision was well-received by advertisers.
“When we lay out our principles and our policies, and we’ve enforced them transparently and consistently, we find that advertisers feel better, not worse about partnering advertising on Twitter,” he said.
