Twitter posted its third consecutive quarter of profit and a 24 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue in Q2, even as monthly user figures failed to meet expectations.

Revenue totalled $711 million, up from $574 million in Q2 2017, thanks in large part to a 23 per cent jump in advertising revenue to $601 million. The US contributed more than half of the total revenue figure, $367 million in Q2, though international revenue grew 44 per cent year over year to $344 million.

The company touted Q2 as its third profitable quarter in a row, with net income of $100 million (compared with a prior-year loss of $116 million). However, Twitter’s efforts to clear fake and abusive accounts off its platform hit user metrics.

Average monthly active users (MAU) for the quarter were up 9 million year-over-year to 335 million, but down by 1 million on a sequential basis. Daily active users were reportedly up 11 per cent, but Twitter did not break out an exact number.

In a letter to shareholders, the company explained the lacklustre MAU figure was the result of “decisions we have made to prioritise the health of the platform, to not move to paid SMS carrier relationships in certain markets and, to a lesser extent, GDPR.” All told, those factors reduced its MAU count by more than 3 million in Q2, it added.

Twitter warned an additional sequential drop could be on the way in Q3 as it continues platform health and GDPR initiatives, noting it expects the decline to be in the “mid-single-digit millions of MAU”.