Twitter is gearing up for its most ambitious quarter of user growth yet, the head of the social media company’s consumer products division told employees on Tuesday.

Twitter is aiming to increase its monetizable daily active users, or users who see ads, by 13 million this quarter, according to an internal meeting heard by Reuters.

Leaders tell employees that this is the highest goal set by the team.

They added that Twitter is on track to achieve that goal, with 8.5 million user growth, one of its best quarters to date.

Twitter shares were up 1 percent in afternoon trading.

The San Francisco-based company has maintained its ambitions to attract new users, although its acquisition by billionaire Elon Musk remains uncertain.

Musk warned Twitter in a filing on Monday that he could forgo the $44 billion (about 341.8 billion rupees) deal if the company does not provide data that would allow him to independently verify the proportion of spam and fake accounts on the social network. trade. media platform.

Spam and fake accounts accounted for less than 5% of quarterly monetizable daily active users, the company said in public filings.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment further.

The Ukrainian war boosted user activity on Twitter at the end of the first quarter, but time spent on the platform fell 4 percent this quarter, leaders said.

Twitter added 20 million users in the second quarter of 2020, its highest quarter-over-quarter growth since at least 2019, as users flocked to the platform for news at the start of the pandemic.

Since then, the company has struggled to meet its long-term goals for user growth and revenue, leading to hiring freezes and cost-saving measures.

Twitter’s internal target of 13 million user growth beat Wall Street expectations, as analysts on average expected 9 million growth, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

© Thomson Reuters 2022