Capping off a year to forget for Twitter Inc., the company’s shares slumped to $19.98 – their lowest ever level – as the New York stock market closed yesterday.
The social media company has regularly been the source of negative financial headlines throughout 2015, during which its stock declined by 35%. Faltering user growth and sales appear to be behind Twitter’s financial woes, as further implied by Bloomberg.
Twitter debuted on the stock market in September 2013 and has seen spluttering and – more alarmingly – gradually falling share values since then. 2015 was a particularly volatile year; then-permanent boss Dick Costolo announced his departure in June, and the company suffered a major staff exodus.
It wasn’t until October that Twitter once again had a permanent leader – in the form of co-founder Jack Dorsey. This week, Dorsey reported that the company was considering lifting the usual 140-character limit for tweets, though he still expected most tweets to stay “short and sweet and conversational”.
Twitter is set to report its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2015 come February 10. Analysts have expressed optimism about Twitter’s future, despite the poor results reported at the last earnings call.