Twitter desperately needs a boost to its user-growth rate.

The microblogging service has posted its third-quarter results, reporting it had 307 million monthly average users during the quarter, which ended on 30 September. That number doesn't include people who use the service via texts, though it still means just an 8 per cent increase year over year.

During this same period last year, Twitter had a growth rate of 23 per cent year over year. So, what does that all mean? Well, Twitter only added 4 million monthly active users during Q3 2015, bringing its total MUAs to 320 million. Although the company's user based did grow, it failed to beat analyst's expectations of 324 million MUAs.

Keep in mind Twitter added 8 million monthly users during Q2 2015 alone. Many were international users, however. Investors prefer US users because Twitter earns more for adverts shown to them. That said, user growth is critical to the company in general, as revenue is dependent upon users and how often they view adverts.

Speaking of revenue, Twitter reported revenue of $569 million and a net loss of $132 million. Twitter said it expected revenue to be in the range of $695 million to $710 million - well below Wall Street's estimate of $741 million. During the same three-month period last year, Twitter had $361 million in revenue and $7 million in profit.

In other words... despite slow user growth, Twitter's third-quarter revenue managed to increase 58 per cent over last year. Tune into the company's conference call at 2 pm PST to hear executives discuss these results in more detail.

Twitter's shares have dipped more than 11 per cent in after-hours trading.