Twitter hits 145m users – 300,000 apps in ecosystem

3 Sep 2010

Twitter now has 145 million users worldwide and there are now 300,000 registered apps, from TweetDeck to TwitPic, supporting the ecosystem, Twitter CEO Evan Williams has revealed.

The key to Twitter’s success, Williams said, has been ensuring its success on mobile.

He said that mobile users have jumped 62pc since mid-April and that 16pc of all users of Twitter start on mobile (5pc before Twitter did its own-branded clients).

He added that 78pc of people who interact with Twitter do so through the main Twitter.com homepage, although many still use more than one app, as well.

“Total mobile users has jumped 62pc since mid-April, and, remarkably, 16pc of all new users to Twitter start on mobile now, as opposed to the 5pc before we launched our first Twitter-branded mobile client. As we had hoped in April, these clients are bringing more people into Twitter, and, even better, they are attracting and retaining active users. Indeed, 46pc of active users make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience.

However, he acknowledged that despite the 300,000 app community and growing, Twitter itself has had to perfect the mobile app with its own Twitter for iPhone (via the Tweetie acquisition), Twitter for BlackBerry and Twitter for Android products. In recent days, the company released an official iPad app.

“One major area of difficulty I highlighted was getting Twitter on your phone. We did iPhone user tests and confirmed that even though there was a plethora of third-party Twitter apps, people were having trouble finding and selecting one because none were called ‘Twitter.’ This kept them from using Twitter at all. For this reason, we acquired Tweetie and turned it into Twitter for iPhone, complete with a new user sign-up experience.”

The strategy for deploying official Twitter apps for various mobile clients, Williams said, is paying off with Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for BlackBerry clients now being two of the most popular ways to use Twitter.

Popular apps

However, he added that other apps like TweetDeck are also popular with some of the most active and frequent users of Twitter using that particular app.

“A disproportionate amount of the traffic from Twitter runs through such tools,” he said.

Williams said the number of registered and authorised applications is now at almost 300,000.

“It’s great to see this kind of variety and growth in the ecosystem as it moves beyond basic Twitter clients.

“These new services help people get the most out of Twitter, contributing to user growth and new business opportunities — both of which are critical to the long-term viability of the ecosystem.

“We’re making great progress in these areas — we currently have more than 145 million registered users and the performance of our Promoted Products has exceeded our expectations. But we still have lots of room to grow and improve. We look forward to seeing what’s next,” said Williams.

Twitter apps chart

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com