Advertising revenue of social media platform, Twitter climbed about 30 percent in Brazil in 2016, Twitter’s top executive in the country told Reuters.
The networking platform defied a two-year slowdown in the local economy and more than doubling the company’s 13 percent revenue growth globally.
Twitter, which does not break down its revenue by country, gave no concrete sales numbers in Brazilian or U.S. currency. It was an unusual move for the company to give details on its performance in one country.
“Brazil is a motor of growth for Twitter, both in users and in revenue,” said Fiamma Zarife in a recent interview.
A surge of interest in real-time marketing around the Olympics, which Rio de Janeiro hosted in August, brought new clients to the platform, she said, and rising smartphone use continues to generate user growth in the country.
The performance in Brazil last year may have been a bright spot for Twitter, but the company is still struggling to convince investors it can win the global war for online advertising against rivals Snapchat and Facebook Inc.
Earlier this month, Twitter posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth since it went public four years ago, sending its shares down more than 10 percent to a seven-month low.
Smartphone penetration doubled in two years to 40 percent of Brazilians last year, according to pollster Ibope. That has boosted many tech companies in the country, even as Brazil’s economy struggles with its deepest recession on record.
Digital ad spending in the country was expected to grow 12 percent in 2016 to 10.4 billion reais ($3.4 billion), according to industry group IAB Brasil.
