One of Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s biggest moves to make the company profitable has yielded mixed results, with only 180,000 U.S. users signing up for Twitter Blue service.
According to a report from The Information, 62% of Twitter Blue users come from the U.S., meaning only about 290,000 users worldwide signed up for the paid service in the first month of availability.
Even that larger figure is less than 0.5% of Twitter’s total worldwide monthly users.
If the subscriber amount remains stagnant, Twitter expects to make just over $27 million off the service this year.
Twitter Blue is still very new, however. The service launched after a rocky start in mid-December 2022. Users can now pay $8 per month, or $7 a month for an annual subscription, to get a blue checkmark and get early access to new features.
The subscription model is just one part of Mr. Musk’s efforts to make the company profitable. He wants at least half of Twitter’s revenue to come from subscriptions, which may be difficult if the first month’s numbers are any indication of the success of the model.
To keep up with interest payments, Twitter Blue is going to need to make the company over $1 billion this year, or nearly 40 times its current performance.
Mr. Musk has teased different levels of subscription as well that may roll out this year to help with revenue. Subscribers may be able to pay slightly more each month to browse Twitter without ads and companies may be able to pay $1,000 a month to keep their verification.
Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022
Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates.
Painful, but necessary.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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