<p> Twitter has failed to grow its monthly active user count at all in the final three months of 2015, resulting in a sharp fall of its shares.<br /><br /></p>.<p>It had 320 million monthly users on average through the quarter, exactly the same as it had in the previous quarter, according to its latest earnings report.<br /><br /> In comparison, rival social network Facebook has over 1.5 billion users and recently reported record financial results of their own.<br /><br />To make matters worse: if you exclude the SMS-only users that Twitter began counting recently, the social network's user count actually declined slightly to 305 million in the holiday quarter from 307 million in the quarter prior.<br /><br />Twitter appeared to pin the poor user numbers in part on seasonal weakness over the holidays and a decision to send fewer emails asking dormant users to return.<br /><br />The stalled user growth has led Twitter to re-think many of its fundamentals, including rumors of doing away with its character limit and this week introducing a partially algorithmic timeline.<br /><br />"We think there's a lot of opportunity in our product to fix some broken windows that we know are inhibiting growth," Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO and cofounder, said in a conference call with analysts.<br /><br />In its earnings report yesterday, Twitter reported it may also "fix" the way people use its iconic @-mention feature, which it says "inhibit usage and drive people away."</p>
<p> Twitter has failed to grow its monthly active user count at all in the final three months of 2015, resulting in a sharp fall of its shares.<br /><br /></p>.<p>It had 320 million monthly users on average through the quarter, exactly the same as it had in the previous quarter, according to its latest earnings report.<br /><br /> In comparison, rival social network Facebook has over 1.5 billion users and recently reported record financial results of their own.<br /><br />To make matters worse: if you exclude the SMS-only users that Twitter began counting recently, the social network's user count actually declined slightly to 305 million in the holiday quarter from 307 million in the quarter prior.<br /><br />Twitter appeared to pin the poor user numbers in part on seasonal weakness over the holidays and a decision to send fewer emails asking dormant users to return.<br /><br />The stalled user growth has led Twitter to re-think many of its fundamentals, including rumors of doing away with its character limit and this week introducing a partially algorithmic timeline.<br /><br />"We think there's a lot of opportunity in our product to fix some broken windows that we know are inhibiting growth," Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO and cofounder, said in a conference call with analysts.<br /><br />In its earnings report yesterday, Twitter reported it may also "fix" the way people use its iconic @-mention feature, which it says "inhibit usage and drive people away."</p>