Twitter says it’s looking at subscription options as ad revenue drops sharply
“You will likely see some tests this year” of various approaches, Dorsey told analysts on…
“You will likely see some tests this year” of various approaches, Dorsey told analysts on an investor call held to discuss the company’s second quarter earnings results. Dorsey said he has “a really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter,” but confirmed that the company is seeking to diversify its sources of revenue in what are “very, very early phases of exploring.”
Shares of Twitter rose 4{a25bda0f8ab6dac90e68079d6f038584ef6ac53f1f4621de3ad526e35cd6c0d6} in early trading Thursday following the earnings results.
Like its rival social networks, Twitter has focused on offering a free service and making money by allowing brands to target ads to its millions of users.
“We want to make sure any new line of revenue is complementary to our advertising business,” Dorsey said. “We do think there is a world where subscription is complementary, where commerce is complementary, where helping people manage paywalls … we think is complementary.”
Twitter’s growth plans are under close scrutiny as many advertisers pull back due to the pandemic. On Thursday, Twitter reported second-quarter ad revenues of $562 million, a 23{a25bda0f8ab6dac90e68079d6f038584ef6ac53f1f4621de3ad526e35cd6c0d6} decrease compared to the same quarter a year ago.
Twitter’s earnings report follows what Dorsey described as a “tough week” in which the company scrambled to address a massive hack that compromised numerous verified accounts, including those of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Dorsey apologized on the conference call Thursday for last week’s massive security breach, saying “we fell behind” on the company’s security obligations.
“We feel terrible about the security incident,” he said. “Security doesn’t have an end point. It’s a constant iteration … We will continue to go above and beyond here as we continue to secure our systems and as we continue to work with external firms and law enforcement.”
