The social-networking service Twitter has reported that three fourths of its 218 million monthly average users from June to October were from outside of the United States. Twitter stated that it has earned more advertising revenue from its US users than from foreign. In order to enhance its advertising experience at a global level, it plans to increase advertising in France, Argentina, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa in order to make its offerings more sophisticated. Twitter said that 65% of its revenue came from mobile ads. However, Twitter faces many challenges in trying to expand its services in developing countries. These up and coming markets have many problems. For instance, many emerging market users do not posses smart phones that are compatible with Twitter, meaning that the quantity of overseas users depends on the popularity of higher-end smart phones.  Another problem that Twitter like many other social networks face, is the ban by authoritarian governments, such as the ban of social networks in mainland China for security reasons. Finally, Twitter faces the problem of getting people’s time, partly due to the emergence of other applications such as Whatsapp, WeChat, which offer private communication through voice and message in comparison to Twitter which is primarily public communication. While US domestic agencies might use Twitter to track individuals, the fact that it has US roots gives it credibility to international users, primarily those living in authoritarian regimes.

A Twitter app on a smartphone in Berlin. Three-quarters of Twitter’s users in the three months through June were outside of the United States, the company said.

Sources:

Jolly, David, and Mark Scott. “Twitter’s I.P.O. Plan Has an International Focus.” The New York Times. N.p., 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 6 Oct. 2013. <Twitter’s I.P.O. Plan Has an International Focus>.