Microblogging site Twitter on Monday announced it had touched a user base of 100 million. The site, started five years ago, sees more than half of its user base logging in every day, according to an official blog. And, 40 per cent of its active users “simply sign in to listen to what's happening in the world”.
The site has around three-four million users in India, and recently, it announced it was available in Hindi, too. In the coming weeks, Twitter would support 17 different languages. It has already launched Twitter in Filipino, Malay, and simplified and traditional Chinese languages.
Twitter's 100 million active users mark an 82 per cent rise over the beginning of this year. The site is on track to adding another 26 million by the end of 2011, according to a new Ovum report. A total of 55 five per cent of its active users use Twitter through mobiles, a promising growth area for Twitter. The company has also said it would expand its sponsored Tweet services.
However, analysts are skeptical about the numbers. “Twitter reported more impressive growth this week. However, once again, it remained circumspect on exactly how well its fledging advertising business was performing. Chief executive Dick Costolo says the existing model is doing well, but without hard figures to back this claim, it is not that reassuring - 'exceeding expectations' is fudge used by too many companies,” said Eden Zoller, principal analyst, Ovum.
| THE BIGGER PICTURE | ||
| Site |
Global | India |
| 750 | 33 | |
| Google+ | 20 | 3 |
| 100 | 4-5 | |
| 100 | 10 | |
| (Figures in millions) Source: Live.com | ||
In India, Twitter's presence is negligible compared to other social networking sites. Though it features among the top 10 sites visited by internet users in India, it represents just about three-four per cent of the internet traffic (estimated at around 100 million). And, the firm does not have any marketing presence or even an office in India.
“I do not think people have really understood the Twitter platform well. Many advertisers try and use the Facebook approach on Twitter, which is not fair. Moreover, Twitter, unlike many of its social networking peers, has been very slow with its advertisement strategy. Most of the other platforms came out with their strategies in a short span,” says Hareesh Tibrewala, joint chief executive of digital agency Social Wavelength.
Social media watchers in India say though India may have three-four million users, only 10 per cent of this may be actual users.
