Twitter Reveals It’s Latest Growth Numbers

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments
Categories: Social Media, twitter


Twitter is rather coy about it’s actual registered subscriber counts and very rarely releases the stats on its tweets, users and its growth. The last figures were released in October last year but today on the anniversary of its 5th birthday they have released the latest numbers and they make interesting reading.Twitter Reveals Its Latest Numbers

The Numbers On Tweets

  • 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
  • 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
  • 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
  • 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
  • 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
  • 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
  • 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

The Numbers On Accounts

  • 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
  • 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
  • 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

The Numbers on Employees

  • Jan 2008 – 8 employees,
  • Jan 2009 – 29 employees
  • Jan 2010 – 130 employees
  • Jan 2011 – 350 employees
  • Today – 400 employees

What is interesting is that there is no mention of the “headline” number of total users, so I am going to have to make an estimate of the total number of Twitter subscribers, which I don’t think will be too far off the mark. So how many registered users do they have?… well we can only extrapolate.  Last year in October they had 165 million users and they were growing at an average of 10 million per month. (See my post on the numbers then). At an average now of 460,000 new users per day (applying 31 days per month) that is 14.4 million per month as of today’s growth rate. So take an average of last years growth per month (10 million) and the latest numbers (14.4 million) and we end up with 12.2 million average growth per month for the last 5 months, this comes to approximately 60 million new users added since last years news release.  So adding 165 million last year to 60 million added in the last 5 months gives us a number! So what are the current number of  registered users at Twitter?… my calculations put it at 225 million. So Twitter is healthy I would say!! Image by matteopenzo



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  • http://twitter.com/nclangereis Niels Langereis

    Hi Jeff, once again a great post. Thanks for crunching the numbers. 225 million! Wow, It looks like Twitter has reached the critical mass, or Tipping Point, if you will. I am wondering what has been the reason behind this. The Arab Peninsula revolutions, The natural disasters around the world, (with especially Australia and New Zealand), or could Charlie Sheen’s recent advance to Twitter been part of the reason? And maybe it is all of the above and much more, I would love to hear your vision on this.

  • Epirot

    purchased by google and over 1000 employees by 2012

    Epirot Ludvik Nekaj
    Ludvik + Partners

  • http://www.brickmarketing.com/ Nick Stamoulis

    Thanks for sharing those numbers. They certainly prove that Twitter is a powerful medium. I’m sure that those numbers will only continue to grow in the near future as more people catch on and understand how Twitter can be used for both business and personal reasons.

  • http://newblog.bufferapp.com/6-brilliant-twitter-resources-you-cant-miss 6 Brilliant Twitter Resources You Can’t Miss « Updates and tips from Buffer

    [...] Read it all here [...]

  • http://kurtdecker.edublogs.org/2011/04/22/why-social-media/ Why social media? | Online PR Today

    [...] press room, there are more than 500 million active users on facebook. It’s estimated more than 200 million people are using twitter.  These figures continue to rise. There’s enormous potential to connect with publics beyond [...]

  • http://net-marketing-strategies.com/marketing/twitter-marketing/30-terrific-facts-and-figures-about-twitter/ 30 Terrific Facts And Figures about Twitter

    [...] seriously by the general public. But over the time Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 225 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search [...]

  • http://www.rednovalabs.com/tweet-toolbox-how-ten-simple-tools-make-twitter-work-for-me-part-1-of-2/ Tweet Toolbox: How Ten Simple Tools Make Twitter Work for Me (Part 1 of 2) | Red Nova Labs

    [...] What Twitter can gauge accurately is how many tweets are circulated: about a billion tweets are sent every week. [...]

  • http://www.buzzvalve.com BUZZVALVE

    Interesting. Does any big event necessarily create new Twitter users? Is there any correlation between a BIG event anywhere around the world and the subsequent increase in new Twitter users? Would love it if you could come up with something on this. Great stuff anyways. 

  • http://ediscovery101.net/2011/08/01/did-you-hear-the-one-about-the-attorney-who-thought-%e2%80%9csocial-media%e2%80%9d-was-a-dating-website-for-singles-over-40/ Did you hear the one about the Attorney who thought “Social Media” was a dating website for singles over 40? « eDiscovery101

    [...] accounts, 119 million Twitter accounts following one or more other accounts (March 2011) with 177 million tweets sent in one day on M arch 11, [...]

  • http://www.socialamateur.com/2011/7-great-reasons-to-be-active-on-twitter/ 7 Great Reasons To Be Active on Twitter | Social Amateur

    [...] seen the handles and hashtags in ads, on TV and all over the web. You’ve heard the Twitter growth numbers and you’ve listened to business and marketing experts tout the benefits of Twitter activity. [...]

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    [...] then Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 225 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search [...]

  • http://www.facebook.com/kate.pendley Kate Pendley

    But how many people actually use their accounts?  One report said that almost half of all Twitter accounts go unused.  Something to think about when you are looking at the numbers.

  • http://techrevel.com/30-terrific-twitter-facts-and-figures 30 Terrific Twitter Facts And Figures | Techrevel.com

    [...] then Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 225 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search [...]

  • Shawn Santos

    Thanks for this information. It would be extremely helpful if your blog posts had dates associated with them, especially where stats are concerned. You indicate your calculations put Twitter users at 225 million…. as of when??

    Shawn

  • http://www.onlinepr.sk/twitter-2/twitter-ohlasil-nove-reklamne-formaty-budu-pre-nas-vhodne/ Twitter ohlásil nové reklamné formáty, budú pre nás vhodné? | www.onlinepr.sk

    [...] valcuje všetky ostatné sociálne siete(Linkedin 122 miliónov uživateľov), Twitter(225 miliónov uživateľov) je údajne efektívnejším nástrojom na predaj. Dnes ho spomínam zámerne aj preto, že jeho [...]

  • http://synergyme.com/blog/2012/04/05/30-terrific-twitter-facts-and-figures/ 30 Terrific Twitter Facts And Figures | synergyme.com

    [...] then Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 225 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search [...]

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