Twitter shares have seen dramatic gains. The jump in price is being attributed to the World Cup.
The FIFA 2014 World Cup was a huge international sporting event, with more fanfare than ever, but it was also huge for the social network Twitter. The company rolled out changes to its service to personalize World Cup information for new users.
This change spurred big jumps in Internet traffic for Twitter, according to a recent report. Earnings for the company jumped as well. The hard numbers for Twitter surpassed nearly all analyst projections.
The social media company tailored the service for each country and game for soccer fans. The soccer tournament was a month-long event and as Tech Times previously reported, Twitter rolled out special colorful hashtags for the World Cup. They were labeled #Brazil2014 and #WorldCup.
Investors were likely concerned, prior to the company's stock spike, that the popularity of Twitter was fading, a report noted. The recent gains renewed some of that confidence. Twitter shares rose by about 29 percent.
One analyst said the company's user base is small and "maturing." That didn't stop the social network from picking up more users and traffic during the World Cup soccer tourney.
In December, stock hit a high of almost $75. It was at $26 when the company went public last November. More than a dozen brokerages either raised their ratings of the stock or raised their target prices.
Twitter reported more than doubled revenue in the second quarter, according to another report. It raked in more than $312 million, up from $139 million a year ago. Growth in new users climbed to 24 percent in that same quarter. CEO Dick Costolo is trying to boost investor confidence by swallowing up more new users of the service, the report indicated. Judging from the strategy employed by the World Cup updates, Twitter may have stumbled upon a virtual goldmine. At the end of June, it had an average of 271 million users, beating analysts' predictions of about 266 million.
Like Facebook, much of that revenue growth came in mobile advertising, according to another news report. Out of the total ad revenue, $224 million was in mobile ads. That amounts to about 80 percent of the company's total ad revenue for the quarter. Costolo said that user experience tweaks will be a strategy and driving force in growth for Twitter.
The company needs a broader base of users, so personalization updates may be key to continued success. As more social networks pop up, they will also continue to be pressured to innovate to stay relevant.
