Twitter Reportedly Logs 180,000 US Subscribers in December 2022 Under Elon Musk

Only 180,00 users in the US were availing of Twitter's subscriptions, particularly Twitter Blue. The Information claims to have obtained a document indicating that subscriptions only accounted for less than 0.2% of the app's monthly active users.

Twitter Blue

One of the changes that Elon Musk ushered in the blue bird app is the Blue Verified check. It was previously reserved for public figures such as journalists, politicians, celebrities, and many more, but now everyone can have a blue check as long as they pay $8 a month for web users.

Meanwhile, Twitter subscribers are charged $11 when they pay through Apple or Google's app stores.

The document obtained by The Information suggests that the US accounts for 62% of Twitter's overall global subscribers, which means that Twitter has around 290,00 subscribers around the world.

The social media app is only expected to make $27.8 million a year from its subscription services with the amount of paying subscribers it currently has.

After a rocky initial debut a month earlier, Twitter reintroduced Blue in the middle of December 2022.

It has since required subscribers to verify their phone numbers for them to avail of a blue check mark. The service was controversial at first since it introduced various accounts that were imitating or parodying public figures.

Ramping Up Twitter's Revenue

According to The Information, Musk told Twitter staff last year that he wanted subscriptions to make up 50% of the website's revenue.

Musk is seeking to bring in $3 billion in revenue for 2023 since the business must pay over $1 billion a year in interest from the debts he took out when he bought the social media company.

To receive half of that from Blue, Twitter has to have a large number of subscribers. Offering a more expensive membership tier that entitles consumers to ad-free online browsing is one strategy the company is taking into consideration to boost revenue from its subscription services.

Additionally, Twitter will reportedly charge companies $1,000 per month for their gold verification badges and an additional $50 per month for each account linked to them.

In related news, Elon Musk appeared to have changed his mind about the platform's acceptance of outside developers, since some "good bots" may still be using the platform's API without charge.

This follows the platform's prior announcement that no bots, good or evil, will have free access to its API going forward.

Other developers created their systems without adequate funding and made them open-sourced. After the announcement, they chose to stop offering their services because they were no longer free.

But according to a recent tweet from Musk, some bots may remain on the app and there will still be limited cost-free access to Twitter's API.