eMarketer: Twitter's monthly active users reach 286 million, advertising revenue will reach $2.6 billion

As Twitter's second-quarter earnings report is about to be released, data research firm eMarketer has published a forecast report on the social application's user base and advertising revenue.

Twitter's monthly active users will reach 286 million

eMarketer believes that although Twitter's new user base is being diverted by competitors such as Facebook and Snapchat, the social app's user growth rate will reach 10.9% this year, which will also make Twitter's monthly active users exceed 286 million by the end of 2016. In addition, Twitter's average annual user growth rate will be 6.5% in the next five years, and its monthly active users will reach 368 million by 2020.

The country with the most monthly active Twitter users is the United States, with about 65 million users, accounting for about 20% of Twitter's global monthly active users. Brazil is second, with 27.7 million monthly active Twitter users in this South American country, followed by Japan (25.9 million) and Mexico (23.5 million).

"When news breaks around the world, you can see it on Twitter right away because Twitter is still a highly instant messaging platform," said Debra Aho Williamson, chief analyst at eMarketer. "Especially as Twitter begins to introduce live streaming, it will attract more users, especially those younger users."

Twitter's ad revenue to rise to $2.61 billion

As the number of Twitter users continues to grow, Twitter's advertising revenue will also increase. According to eMarketer's forecast, by the end of 2016, Twitter's global advertising revenue will reach 2.61 billion US dollars, accounting for 7.9% of the global social media advertising revenue. Meanwhile, the advertising revenue of another social giant, Facebook, will account for 67.9% of the global social media advertising revenue.

Of Twitter's $2.61 billion in advertising revenue this year, 63.1% came from the United States, a figure that will continue to decline to 62.1% and 61.1% in the next two years. In addition, mobile phones accounted for 88.9% of all Twitter's advertising revenue in 2016.

In predicting the future development of Twitter's advertising revenue, Debra Aho Williamson said: "Similar to Facebook, Twitter has also achieved success in mobile advertising, and with the addition of live video features, its advertising revenue will continue to grow."