Twitter shares soar on strongest user growth for more than a year

Twitter (Frankfurt: A1W6XZ - news) shares have opened 10% up after its latest results beat expectations - highlighting its strongest user growth for more than a year.

The microblogging service - which is listed on the NYSE - reported a 6% leap in average monthly active users, to 328 million, in the first quarter of the year compared to a year ago.

Net (LSE: 0LN0.L - news) losses fell from $79.7m to $61.6m but revenue dropped - for the first time since its flotation in 2013 - by 8% to $548.3m. The dive was aided by an 11% drop in ad sales.

Investors have piled the pressure on Twitter to grow its user base and the company has responded by moving to diversify its offering through new features including live video broadcasts.

A weak performance for user growth in 2016 raised questions about chief executive Jack Dorsey's leadership and sparked speculation that Twitter was ripe for a takeover as major rivals, including Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) and Snapchat, made strides on their key metrics.

He said on Wednesday: "We're delivering on our goal to build a service that people love to use, every day, and we're encouraged by the audience growth momentum we saw in the first quarter.

"While we continue to face revenue headwinds, we believe that executing on our plan and growing our audience should result in positive revenue growth over the long term."

Twitter is yet to make a net profit in its 11-year history. It had previously warned that strong competition for advertising spend would harm revenues this year.