Feeling Blue, but Not Smelling Green
Erin Woo, reporting for The Information:
Around 180,000 people in the U.S. were paying for subscriptions to
Twitter, including Twitter Blue, as of mid-January, or less than
0.2% of monthly active users, according to a document viewed by
The Information. The tiny number signals the challenge Elon Musk
faces in turning the subscription product into a major source of
revenue.
The U.S. number is about 62% of Twitter’s global subscriber total,
the document says, which implies Twitter has 290,000 global
subscribers. Twitter is charging $8 a month for Blue Verified on
the web and $11 a month for those who sign up via Apple’s iOS,
although Apple keeps 30% of that fee.
All together, the global number of subscribers would equate to
around $28 million in annual revenue — less than 1% of the $3
billion Musk has said Twitter aims to make in revenue this year.
In November, days after assuming control of Twitter, Musk told his
new employees he wanted half the company’s revenue to come from
subscriptions.
Hard to believe people aren’t jumping at the chance to pay $8/month for a website that is crumbling before our eyes. Lucky for Musk, advertising is down too, so maybe if ad revenue keeps dropping, subscriptions will account for half of Twitter’s revenue.
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Erin Woo, reporting for The Information:
Around 180,000 people in the U.S. were paying for subscriptions to
Twitter, including Twitter Blue, as of mid-January, or less than
0.2% of monthly active users, according to a document viewed by
The Information. The tiny number signals the challenge Elon Musk
faces in turning the subscription product into a major source of
revenue.
The U.S. number is about 62% of Twitter’s global subscriber total,
the document says, which implies Twitter has 290,000 global
subscribers. Twitter is charging $8 a month for Blue Verified on
the web and $11 a month for those who sign up via Apple’s iOS,
although Apple keeps 30% of that fee.
All together, the global number of subscribers would equate to
around $28 million in annual revenue — less than 1% of the $3
billion Musk has said Twitter aims to make in revenue this year.
In November, days after assuming control of Twitter, Musk told his
new employees he wanted half the company’s revenue to come from
subscriptions.
Hard to believe people aren’t jumping at the chance to pay $8/month for a website that is crumbling before our eyes. Lucky for Musk, advertising is down too, so maybe if ad revenue keeps dropping, subscriptions will account for half of Twitter’s revenue.