Pre-market trading has seen shares in Twitter fall by 18 per cent, following the companys 2018 Q2 financial disclosure. The new figures revealed that monthly active users on the platform have dropped by 1m quarter-on-quarter to 335m.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that this drop was to be expected following the company actively purging fake and spam-producing accounts, and could will likely continue into the third quarter. Daily active users was up 11 per cent year-on-year (YoY), marking the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in this regard.

“Our second quarter results reflect the work were doing to ensure more people get value from Twitter every day,” said Dorsey. “We want people to feel safe freely expressing themselves and have launched new tools to address problem behaviours that distort and distract from the public conversation.”

Ad sales on Twitter were up at $711m (£542m), 24 per cent above where they were 12 months ago, with the platform having benefitted greatly from the World Cup in Russia. In fact, the firm hit record levels of profit this quarter, with GAAP net income at $100m thanks to the football tournament.

“Twitter has endured a tricky relationship with investors, but latest earnings show it is not having the same trouble with advertisers,” said Abi Jacks, director of marketing at Rakuten Marketing. “Though the platform captures less of the limelight for its recent advancements – not quite as notable as shoppable AR features – there have been some smart developments.

“Take the new Explroe tab; Twitter is now starting to test Promoted Trend Spotlight ads, putting an engaging visual banner equipped with a GIF or image background atop the Trends list. The first batch of these came from Disney, no less. Historically, Twitters biggest problem was that people skimmed past ads, but with the shift to an algorithmic Timeline and bigger focus on video, Twitter is retraining users to expect relevant content in every slot.”