Twitter expects to post at least US$1 billion in revenue by 2014, based on its expectations on the growth of its advertising business, according to a Bloomberg report citing “sources with knowledge of the matter”.
The growth is twice as fast as what analysts are predicting, according to Bloomberg. Twitter, however, could change or miss its forecast, the report today said.
The guidance would answer some critics’ questions on how Twitter would make money from its 140 million users. The company has increased its efforts to lure in marketers to the micro-blogging service, which relies on its users blasting out 140-character messages to each other.
Bloomberg cited EMarketer, which pegged Twitter’s revenue in 2014 to be at US$540 million.
But Twitter’s ability to hit US$1 billion in revenue by 2014 would still make it slower growing than Google or Facebook, the other major players on the internet. It took Google five years to reach US$1 billion, while Facebook hit the benchmark in six years, Bloomberg noted. Twitter will be eight years old in 2014.
The US$1 billion is approximately what Facebook generated in the first quarter of this year.
Twitter aims to expand internationally, such as in Japan, as it looks to lessen its dependence on growth in the US, where a vast majority of its users are. At the same time, the company is looking to convince potential investors that it is able to capitalise on its large audience, an issue that has tripped up Facebook’s early days as a public company.