X (Twitter) Revenue and Usage Statistics (2024)

What is X (Twitter)?

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Noah Glass, and Biz Stone, Twitter is a very popular microblogging and social networking platform where users are communicating and staying connected via quick messages and interactions.

Twitter is generally used for sharing thoughts and information with a big audience, keeping up with local and global news, following celebrities and brands, and for following and communicating with friends. Used by millions of people around the world daily, the easy to use platform has become a one stop shop for millions of people from different countries, languages, cultures, and views. 

Twitter is also a great channel for both small and large businesses for marketing to increase their brand awareness and to let their audiences get in touch with them in seconds. Via Twitter, brands and businesses share their important updates and company or customer-related news, answer their audience’s questions, and even watch closely their competitors to create a competitive advantage.

P.S. In October 2022, Elon Musk completed Twitter’s $44 billion acquisition, making the company private. Musk rebranded Twitter to X in July 2023.

X (Twitter) Usage Statistics

• Elon Musk announced that X, formerly Twitter, reached 600 million monthly users as of May 2024, two month after the platform reached 550 million monthly actives.

• According to Sensor Tower, Twitter ranked 9th among all free iOS apps in China on November 29, from 150th a week ago.
• As of November 16, 2022, Twitter was adding more than 2 million new users per day in the past seven days, up 66% as compared to the same week of 2021.
• As of November 15, 2022, Twitter recorded nearly 8 billion user active minutes per day in the last 7 days, up more than 30% from the same week of 2021. (Elon Musk)
• As of November 16, 2022, Twitter reported 253,865,365 global monetizable daily active users.
• In Q2 2022, Twitter’s average monetizable DAU was 237.8 million, up 16.6% compared to the second quarter of 2021.
• Twitter revealed that it miscounted its monetizable daily active users from Q1 2019 to Q4 2021. The figures in the table below have been updated after Twitter’s announcement.

• Twitter’s average DAU for Q1 2022 was 229 million, up 15.9% compared to Q1 of the prior year. Average US mDAU was 39.6 million for Q1, up 6.4% compared to Q1 of the prior year.
• In the fourth quarter of 2021, Twitter’s monetizable DAU reached 214.7 million, up 13% year-over-year.
• Twitter reported that Average monetizable DAU (daily active users) reached 209.3 million in Q3, up 13% year over year, accelerating from 11% year over year growth in Q2.
• Twitter’s average monetizable DAUs was 197.6 million in the first quarter of 2021, up 20% year over year and up 7 million sequentially. (Twitter)
• Average monetizable daily active users of Twitter was 186 million in the second quarter of 2020, increased by 34% year over year. (Twitter)
• As of May 2020, in every second, on average, around 6000 tweets sent, which means 500 million tweets sent each day. (David Sayce)
• The number of users following Topics on Twitter reached 50 million at the end of Q2 2020. (Twitter)
• 30.9% of Twitter users were aged between 25 and 34 years as of July 2020, followed by 27% of the users aged between 18 and 24 years. (Statista)
• Twitter topped its record for installs on June 3, 2020 with 677,000 worldwide downloads and 140,000 U.S. downloads during protests over George Floyd’s death and the Coronavirus pandemic.

Twitter Revenue Statistics

• X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in September 2023 that the social media platform could turn profit in 2024.
• In April 2023, Insider Intelligence cut its estimate for Twitter’s worldwide ad revenue for 2023 by 37% to $2.98 billion. That would be a 28% decrease from Twitter’s projected $4.14 billion in ad revenue for 2022.
• Twitter’s paid subscription service Blue generated $11 million in mobile subscriptions as of March 2023. (Techcrunch)
• According to a Bloomberg report dated March 30, 2023, Twitter’s advertising revenue plunged 89% since Elon Musk’s acquisition. Bloomberg reported that from September to October of last year, the top 10 marketers on Twitter spent $71 million on ads. Per the report, the total dropped to just $7.6 million over the last two months, an 89% decrease.
• Twitter revenue for Q2 2022 was $1.18 billion, a decrease of 1% year-over-year.

• Twitter revenue for Q1 2022 was $1.20 billion, an increase od 16% year-over-year, reflecting headwinds associated with the war in Ukraine. When excluding MoPub and MoPub Acquire,
  year-over-year growth was 22%.
• For Q4 2021, Twitter revenue reached $1.57 billion, with ad revenue of $1.41 billion, both up 22% year over year, driven by ongoing revenue product improvements, solid sales execution, and a broad, continued increase in advertiser demand.
• In January 2022, AppLovin closed the acquision of Twitter’s MoPub for over $1 billion.
• Twitter reported that its Q3 revenue rose 37% to  $1.28 billion and avoided the revenue hit from Apple’s privacy changes. The company forecast Q4 revenue between $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion. In the third quarter of 2021, Twitter said its total advertising revenue was $1.14 billion, an increase of 41%, meeting revenue estimates.
• Twitter’s revenue for the first quarter of 2021 was $1.04 billion, up 28% year over year. Total US revenue was $556 million, an increase of 19%. Total international revenue was $480 million, an increase of 41%, or 38% on a constant currency basis. Japan remains Twitter’s second largest market, growing 30% and contributing $170 million, or 16% of total revenue in Q1 2021.
• Twitter delivered $899 million in ad revenue in the first quarter of 2021, up 32% year over year. By region, US advertising revenue totaled $464 million, an increase of 22% compared to a year over year increase of 27% last quarter. International ad revenue was $435 million, up 45%, or 41% on a constant currency basis, compared to a year over year increase of 35% last quarter.
• Twitter shares fell 13% after the social media company reported its first quarter 2021 results and shared a disappointing ad sales revenue prediction that failed to meet analysts’ expectations. 
• In January 2021, Twitter acquired social podcasting app Breaker.
• At the end of the last quarter of 2019, Twitter hit $1.01 billion in revenue, the first time in its history that it generated $1 billion in revenue in a quarter. 
• Twitter reported a revenue of $683 million in the second quarter of 2020, decreased by 19% year over year. (Twitter)
• In the second quarter of 2020, Twitter reported a total loss of $1.23 billion, caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. (Statista)
• US revenue of Twitter totaled $365 million, a decrease of 20% year-over-year. (Twitter)
• Twitter’s ad revenue accounted for $562 million, down by 19% year on year, in the second quarter of 2020. 
• International revenue of Twitter totaled $319 million, a decrease of 18% year-over-year. (Twitter)
• During the last three weeks of June, advertising revenue of Twitter declined 15% year over year. (Twitter)
• Q2 costs and expenses of Twitter totaled $807 million, an increase of 5% year over year. This resulted in an operating loss of $124 million and -18% operating margin, compared to operating income of $76 million or 9% operating margin in the same period of the previous year. (Twitter)

Frequently asked questions about Twitter

What is a tweet?

A tweet means any message posted on Twitter that can be an image, a video, a text, a link, a gif, or a poll. Users can create tweets, that should include up to 280 characters, and post it immediately or schedule it for a later time. A user has a limit of 2400 tweets per day and retweets are counted as tweets. 

A user can choose who can reply to their Tweets, following a recent feature Twitter announcement Using the feature while tweeting, before sending it, users have 3 different options to choose who can reply including Everyone, People you follow, and Only people you mention. 

It is also allowed to delete any Tweet at any time but users can only delete their own tweets. Tweets should be deleted one by one, meaning there is no way to delete multiple tweets at a time. A deleted tweet is removed from the user’s profile, Twitter’s search results, the timeline of any accounts that follow the user, and from the retweets. However, if another user has copied and pasted part  or all of a tweet into his/her own tweet, it is not removed.

Twitter also rolled out a new feature called Quote Tweets that enables users to see when someone else retweets their tweets with a comment. The feature is located between ‘’Retweets’’ and ‘’Likes’’ labels.  

What is retweet?

A retweet is re-sharing a Tweet enabling users to share a tweet that they like quickly with their followers. A retweet is also known as “rt” on Twitter. A retweet looks like a normal tweet with a Retweet icon  next to the name of the person who retweeted the tweet. Users can see Tweets people they follow have retweeted and quote tweeted in their Home timeline. However it is not allowed to see retweets and quote tweets from accounts blocked. 

It is allowed to turn off retweets for a specific account by selecting “Turn off Retweets” from the account profile page by clicking the gear icon or the overflow icon. 

A retweet can be undone by clicking on the Retweet icon in the tweet. If there is a lock icon next to someone’s name on the profile page on his or her tweets, it means it  is not allowed to retweet his or her tweets. 

What is dm in Twitter?

A dm, also known as direct message, is a private message sent directly to a Twitter account from another Twitter account. A direct message, or dm, does not appear on public profiles and only the receiver can see and read the message. 

A direct message can be sent to one single person or to a group of people who follows you. In group conversations, users are allowed to add other users from their followers. However it is restricted to send a direct message to a person you block. 

When a direct message (DM) is deleted, it is only removed from the account of the user who deleted it. 

The limit is 1,000 direct messages sent per day. 

What are Twitter lists?

A Twitter list is a curated collection of Twitter accounts that users are allowed to create by their own or follow Lists created by others. A Twitter list can be shared, edited, and deleted. Users can add and remove lists to their home timelines, follow other people’s lists, view tweets from lists, and report a list. 

What is a hashtag on Twitter?

Adding a “#” to the beginning of a word or a phrase creates a hashtag. Using hashtags in a tweet makes it linked to all other tweets that use the same hashtag and it increases the opportunity of a tweet to be seen, retweeted, liked, and replied by more people following the hashtag.

There are some popular hashtags including #tuesdaymotivation, #photography, and #funny. Single users and businesses prefer using hashtags to increase their tweets’ impressions and maximize the interaction. What important while using hashtags is relevancy with the tweet’s content. 

What is Tweetdeck?

A Tweetdeck is a dashboard provided by Twitter, letting users to view and manage multiple timelines in one interface. It is a free to use dashboard where users can pick their favorite timelines like Followers, Mentions, Messages, Home page, user profile, and more, and see them in a single page without having to leave any page. 

What does embed tweet mean?

Embedded Tweets are tweets added to a page or website from Twitter. Embedded tweets look the same as tweets in Twitter. Users can click on an embedded tweet to be redirected to the original tweet page in Twitter in order to interact with the tweet via retweet, reply, or like. Every tweet has an embed code that users can copy and paste into their webpages.  

What happens when you block someone on Twitter? 

When you block someone on Twitter, the account you blocked can’t follow you and you also can’t continue following that account. A blocked account doesn’t get a notification when you block it but if the blocked account visits your profile and tries to see your tweets, it will see that you’ve blocked. 

Blocked accounts can’t view or find your tweets, send DMs (direct messages), view your followers and following lists, add you to a Twitter list, or tag you in a photo. 

What is a pinned tweet?

A pinned tweet is a static tweet staying at the top of your profile. When someone visits your profile, he/she first sees your pinned tweet at the top of your feed. You can only pin one tweet at a time to your profile. 

Pinned tweets are mostly used to show the most retweeted, liked, or replied tweet or to show the newest tweet to new followers in order to get more interaction. 

What is my Twitter url?

After signing in to your Twitter account, if you have any, you need to go to the ‘Profile’ section and copy the web address in your browser’s address bar. Your Twitter URL will be something like: https://twitter.com/mmarketingreads

Your twitter username is what you see under your Twitter name in the Profile section, starting with @ sign. Your Twitter username should be something like @mmarketingreads