Twitter Inc reported anaemic user growth during the final three months of last year, sending shares sinking after its first quarterly report as a public company.

Shares dropped more than 10 percent to $58 in after hours trading.

The company reported $243 million in revenue during the fourth quarter, topping investors’ expectations of $218.2 million, on average.

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.

User numbers grew at 10 percent, 7 percent, and 6 percent during the first three quarters of the year, respectively.

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.

Timeline views, a measure of user engagement, dropped sharply from 159 billion to 148 billion in the quarter, signalling that users were refreshing their Twitter accounts less often. (Reuters)