Twitter Inc (TWTR)’s Solution to Slow Growth: Focus on Asia Pacific

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)‘s VP for Asia and Emerging Markets, Shailesh Rao discussed on Bloomberg,  the future outlook for the social media platform that is facing an inactive users problem.

twitter twtr facebook fb

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s 270 million monthly users seems a small number when compared with 1.2 billion for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and 200 million for Instagram. The number is dwarfed even more if we take into account the fact that 30% of these users are inactive.  Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin asked about the company’s growth strategy in these circumstances from Rao.

“[…] And here in Asia we are very proud to say that we have the largest active user base of any region of the world for Twitter, and the fastest growing, in two of the five largest usage markets in the world, in Indonesia and Japan […],” said Rao.

Rao also drew attention to the uniqueness of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) in terms of it being a real time informational network of “live, public, conversational and distributed content,” which gives it an edge in front of its competitors.

Owing to its nature, Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) serves a very different purpose from its rivals. Rao pointed out the significance of the platform in terms of engagement between citizens and their leaders. He mentioned that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) was at the heart of election conversations in India  and Indonesia where 60 million and 90 million tweets were sent respectively.

With regards to the challenges that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) faces in the future, Rao said that the company’s focus will be on educating at scale which means educating users, partners and advertisers on use of the social platform.

Although Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s role in political awareness and disaster mitigation can’t be ignored, strong user numbers are needed for a profitable business. To expand users Twitter has headed out overseas. It already has five offices in Asia Pacific region and one more is opening in Indonesia in the next three to six months. Rao also mentioned that Indonesia and Japan are Twitter’s largest usage markets while India and Korea are the fastest growing regions.

Disclosure: none