Twitter is laying off 9 per cent of its workforce and restructuring, with its short video app Vine an early casualty.

The job cuts equate to around 350 positions.

The restructuring, which focuses on reorganising the company’s sales, partnerships, and marketing efforts, “is intended to create greater focus and efficiency to enable Twitter’s goal of driving toward GAAP profitability in 2017”.

“Our strategy is directly driving growth in audience and engagement, with an acceleration in year-over-year growth for daily active usage, tweet impressions, and time spent for the second consecutive quarter,” said CEO Jack Dorsey.

Average monthly active users stood at 317 million for the quarter, up  3 per cent year-over-year, with 83 per cent of the total on mobiles. User base growth has been a key concern for Twitter.

“We see a significant opportunity to increase growth as we continue to improve the core service. We have a clear plan, and we’re making the necessary changes to ensure Twitter is positioned for long-term growth,” Dorsey added.

It also seems likely Twitter will not be sold to another company, not least because of a lack of interest from suitors.

Twitter estimates it will spend $10 million to $20 million as a result of the restructuring, including severance costs and stock-based compensation expense.

The company posted quarterly revenue of $616 million, up 8 per cent year-over-year and a net loss of $103 million, down from a $131.7 million loss in the same period last year.

Advertising revenue totaled $545 million, an increase of 6 per cent year-over-year, with mobile making up 90 per cent of the total.

Vine
Twitter didn’t give any reason for sunsetting the service. All it said was: “Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today. We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines. We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.”

In its Q3 results statement, Anthony Noto, CFO, said the firm is “de-prioritising certain initiatives and simplifying how we operate in other areas”.

The app, which let users create short looping clips, once had 100 million people watching videos and was the first time video came to the Twitter platform, but user numbers have dwindled in recent years.

Twitter has integrated video sharing directly into its core app, and its efforts in the space continue with live streaming app Periscope.