While Twitter may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there’s no denying its cultural impact, nor the potential it has to keep on growing!
More than 15 years on from that first-ever tweet, and to say that Twitter’s (NYSE: TWTR) innovation has been lacking would be an understatement.
But finally, the wheels appear to be turning as Twitter branches into a whole new revenue stream.
Twitter’s subscription service
For almost the entirety of its existence, ad revenue has been keeping the lights on over at Twitter HQ. As of Q1 this year, it makes up 81% of the company’s total income.
This has been a sore point for Twitter’s investors ever since it went public. However, Jack Dorsey is doing his best to put those fears at ease with the launch of Twitter Blue.
Launching first in Canada and Australia yesterday at a price of $3.49 and $4.49 per month respectively, the service will provide subscribers with a host of new features. These include Bookmark Folders so users can organize tweets they save, a Reader Mode that makes it easier to read long threads, and an “undo” function that allows people to preview tweets before they send them, giving them a chance to make changes.
And so the decade-long call for an ‘Edit’ function goes unanswered once more…
But what does this mean for Twitter? Well, it’s a massive first step in the company’s ambitious plans to reach 315 million monetizable daily active users and double its annual revenue to $7.5 billion by the end of 2023.
And by releasing it in the limited, yet still large, Australian and Canadian markets, it is giving itself an excellent testing platform prior to release in the more lucrative U.S. market.
It’s exciting times at Twitter, and investors should watch this space very closely for updates on the subscription services performance.
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