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Twitter registers growth in active users amidst discussions about COVID-19 pandemic

2020 was a tough year, but still, companies had the opportunity to grow even more. Twitter today shared its earnings for the first quarter of 2021, and the social network registered a significant increase in the number of active users last year. The main reason might be related to the discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company closed 2020 with an average of 199 million active users per day, which is almost 20% more when compared to the 166 million active users in 2019. The social network has seen more espressive growth outside the US, with international users growing from 133 million in the Q1 FY2020 to 162 million now.

Twitter’s revenue for Q1 2021 was $1.04 billion, up 28% YoY. Last year, Twitter had lost $8 million compared to previous results. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a memo to investors that growth was “driven by ongoing product improvements and global conversation around current events.”

As noted by Engadget, the last time Twitter released the average number of daily active users on the social network was about a year ago, when the events of the COVID-19 pandemic became more intense around the world. This, coupled with the US elections, probably made more people interested in joining Twitter.

Between the ongoing pandemic and a positively insane election cycle in the US, it’s not surprising that Twitter did well. The company seems to thrive when there’s a lot of of polarizing events for people to argue over, and there’s no doubt that sums up 2020 pretty well.

For this year, Twitter has been working on even more ways to make more money, including a paid “Super Follow” service that will give users access to exclusive content from creators through a monthly subscription.

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Avatar for Filipe Espósito Filipe Espósito

Filipe Espósito is a Brazilian tech Journalist who started covering Apple news on iHelp BR with some exclusive scoops — including the reveal of the new Apple Watch Series 5 models in titanium and ceramic. He joined 9to5Mac to share even more tech news around the world.