Twitter blames ‘confusing’ service for slide in growth, shares

Twitter is not just stuck in the mud — it’s sinking.

The once-hot microblogging company said Wednesday its monthly active users, excluding SMS-only users, slipped to 305 million in the fourth quarter from 307 million in the previous quarter.

Overall, the San Francisco company’s monthly active users, or MAUs, remained stuck at 320 million — the third straight month of zero growth.

Wall Street was expecting a modest gain to 325 million.

Investors, who have already beaten down Twitter’s shares 52 percent in just over three months, raced to the exits again after Chief Executive Jack Dorsey announced the news after markets closed.

Twitter shares tumbled 13 percent in the minutes after the fourth-quarter results were announced, before strengthening to float just 4 percent below the regular session close at $14.98.

The shares haven’t traded above its November 2013 initial public offering price of $26 since Nov. 25.

Dorsey, despite a lack of success in growing MAUs since he returned as CEO last fall, believes he has the tools to make it budge soon.

While Twitter remains popular among journalists, celebrities and politicians, non-users seem bewildered by its barrage of tweets and hashtags.

Experts likewise fret that Twitter is stuck while younger, rival social networks steal away the attention of millennials. Facebook’s Instagram photo-sharing app has surpassed 400 million users, and Snapchat also is growing rapidly.

Twitter’s after-market stock drop came despite a narrower-than-expected loss and better-than-expected revenue — as new advertising products attracted a bevy of new brands to the service.

On a conference call, Dorsey told analysts that a new feature introduced Wednesday, which shows newly logged-on users the best of recent tweets they missed, had a good first day, sparking more tweets, likes and conversations.

“We are focusing a lot of our energy on what is confusing about the service, what is inhibiting growth,” Dorsey told analysts on a video broadcast via Twitter’s Periscope app.

The microblogger has been held back by what he called “broken windows” — or flaws in the user experience that can be fixed relatively easily. Those include “some really weird rules around conversations,” Dorsey said.

To get the job done, the CEO said he’s aggressively hiring new product engineers and design talent, even as he consolidates the brass following the recent departure of four top executives.

Fourth-quarter revenue surged 48 percent to $710 million, matching forecasts. It posted a loss of $90.2 million, or 13 cents a share.