Facebook and Twitter are the two services that jump immediately to mind when somebody says “social media.” But, as revealed in Twitter’s freshly filed IPO prospectus, the two companies couldn’t be more different when it comes to their financials and growth. (Oh, and Twitter doesn’t officially consider itself a social network.)
The chart above compares Twitter and Facebook on the following metrics: quarterly revenue, monthly active users (the number of people who use the site at least once a month), and the average amount of money each company earns for each user (a value that Facebook reports explicitly, but that Quartz had to derive for Twitter). All metrics are compared based on the amount of time that has elapsed since each company’s launch.
It’s clear that Twitter, now seven-and-a-half years old, is not nearly as large as Facebook was at the same age; it’s also not growing at nearly the same pace. They’re two very different companies with two very different trajectories.