• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, February 6, 2017

What are analysts expecting from Twitter when it reports fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday?

 

Not much.

 

“Twitter is losing traction fast,” Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer, explains in a new note to investors. “It is starting to shed once-promising products, such as Vine, and sell off parts of its business, such as its Fabric app development platform.”

 

“At the same time, some surveys indicate that Twitter is becoming less integral to advertisers’ spending plans,” according to Williamson. “That doesn’t bode well for future ad revenue growth.” 

 

Not surprisingly, that doesn’t bode well for Twitter’s bottom line, either.  Indeed, eMarketer expects the social network’s share of total worldwide digital ad spending to shrink slightly to 1.1%, this year, while its share of the worldwide mobile ad market will shrink to 1.6%. 

 

Globally, total ad revenue will grow 12% to reach $2.53 billion, while mobile ad revenue will grow 13.5% to reach $2.27 billion, this year.

 

Meanwhile, while Twitter’s user base will continue to grow over the next several years, eMarketer expects its share of worldwide social network users to remain virtually unchanged at 10.9% in 2017.

 

Twitter’s worldwide user base will grow 3.4%, this year, to 255.3 million people.

“The good news is that many businesses still consider Twitter an essential place to conduct customer service and distribute vital corporate information,” according to Williamson.

What’s more, “It is still unmatched as a venue for discussing real-time news and events,” Williamson added. “There’s no question there is value in all of that, but the company just can’t seem to figure out how to get back on track.”