Twitter reports 2013 net loss of £396m and limited growth

Discouraging results for company only three months after IPO

Social network Twitter has reported a net loss of $645m (£396m) for 2013.

The company was only launched on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2013, making this is the first result following Twitter's public offering.

The three months after IPO, however, saw Twitter more than double its previous revenues, generating sales of $243m (£149m) for a net loss of $511m (£314m) for that period.

While the losses weren't unexpected, it's perhaps Twitter's growth levels that caused share value in the company to fall by as much as 18 per cent in after-hours yesterday.

Nearly $6.5bn has been wiped from Twitter's overall value after yesterday's trading ceased.

In the last quarter of 2013, Twitter averaged 241 million monthly users, which represents a growth of only 3.8 per cent on Q3. With timeline views down 7 per cent and only 30 per cent of users logging onto Twitter at least once a month, compared to 38 per cent a year earlier in 2012, many of the figures are discouraging.

However, the company's overall revenues have still doubled from $317m in 2012 to $655m in 2013, and with $243m coming from November onwards, this in itself is encouraging for Twitter.

Investors are understood to have been expecting a loss this early on, but if the growth rate of the social network is actually slowing so quickly, recovery options could be limited.

CEO Dick Costolo said the company will be "doubling down" on audience expansion in 2014, having previously fallen back on "viral and organic" growth tactics in the past.

"We don't need to change anything about the platform," said Costolo. "We simply need to make Twitter a better Twitter."