Twitter overstated the number of daily active users on its platform over the past three years due to an error introduced in March of 2019. The error resulted in an overstatement of monetisable daily active usage (mDAU) from Q1 2019 through Q4 2021.
Monetisable daily active usage or users (mDAU) has been defined as Twitter users who logged in or were otherwise authenticated and accessed Twitter on any given day through Twitter.com or Twitter applications that are able to show ads.
“In March of 2019, we launched a feature that allowed people to link multiple separate accounts together in order to conveniently switch between accounts. An error was made at that time, such that actions taken via the primary account resulted in all linked accounts being counted as mDAU. This resulted in an overstatement of mDAU from Q1’19 through Q4’21,” Twitter explained in its latest earnings report.
mDAU stats
The platform had overcounted its mDAU by 1.4 million in Q4 2020. It had overcounted the mDAU by up to 1.9 million in Q4 2021. The mDAU for Q4 2021 stood at 214.7 million, instead of 216.6 million as reported earlier. Despite the miscalculations, the platform managed to click average mDAU of 229.0 million for Q1 2022, up 15.9 per cent compared to Q1 of the prior year.
Twitter Inc on Monday announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash, in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. The company will become a privately held one on completion of the transaction.
In light of the proposed transaction, the social media major said that as is customary during the pendency of an acquisition it will not be hosting a conference call, issuing a shareholder letter, or providing financial guidance in conjunction with its first quarter 2022 earnings release.