By Joseph Lazzaro - It was a bitter-sweet final 2013 earnings report for Twitter.
Twitter reported anemic user growth during the final three months of 2013, sending shares sinking after its first quarterly report as a public company, Reuters reported..
Shares dropped more than 10 percent to $58 in after-hours trading, in the initial post-4 p.m. EST hour.
The company reported $243 million in revenue during the fourth quarter, topping investors' expectations of $218.2 million, on average, Reuters reported.
But user growth, a closely watched metric, appeared to falter. It averaged 241 million monthly users, up just 3.8 percent from the previous quarter - the lowest rate since Twitter began disclosing its user figures.
Twitter's user numbers grew at 10 percent, 7 percent, and 6 percent during the first three quarters of the year, respectively, Reuters reported.
Twitter, which held a highly-anticipated initial public offering in November at $26 a share, has divided investor opinion in the months since as shares more than doubled to more than $66 despite an absence of news.