美國證券交易委員會對推特公司提出了一個許多投資者也好奇的問題：為什么不公布日活躍用戶數？

推特會公布月活躍用戶數，這個數字已經兩個季度維持在3.28億了。公司希望投資者轉而關注日活躍用戶數的增長，在過去三個季度里，這項數據每個季度都有10%以上的漲幅。但是推特并沒有指明這個百分比的基數是多少。

在5月10日的信件中，證券交易委員會請推特解釋這種做法，并“告訴我們百分比變動的信息如何讓投資者清楚地了解你們平臺的用戶參與度”。

推特給出了很長的答復，稱公布增長率比公布數值更加重要。公司表示，實際上，公布日活躍用戶數會引發(fā)與Facebook數據的對比，而這是不公平的，因為Facebook的數據中包含了其獨立的信息應用的用戶數。這家位于舊金山的公司表示：“投資者就不會關注我們公司的表現與其他公司的區(qū)別了。”Facebook的月活躍用戶數是推特的六倍。

推特也不希望投資者輕易通過計算得出其日活躍用戶數。公司曾透露過日活躍用戶在月活躍用戶中的比例，不過這個比例僅適用于公司排名前20的市場。他們對證券交易委員會表示，自己不想披露整體比例，因為這“相當于間接告知了日活躍用戶數的絕對數值，”從而讓投資者的關注點從增長率上轉移開來。推特稱，后者更加重要。

推特在上周的收入電話會議上也受到了關于數據的質疑。在報告之后，公司做了一個說明，透露了兩點數據的線索：日活躍用戶數不足月活躍用戶數的50%，但是其增長空間很大。

7月3日，證券交易委員會對推特表示他們對回答已經滿意。不過一些分析師還不罷休。

Monness Crespi Hardt & Co.的分析師詹姆斯·卡克馬克表示：“聲稱用戶增長率比絕對數值重要，他們很有勇氣，尤其考慮到后者才是（推特商業(yè)模式）的主要推動力量?！彼烙嬐铺氐娜栈钴S用戶數大概是8,000萬到1億。而Facebook是13.2億，Snapchat是1.66億。（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked Twitter Inc. a question that many investors also have: why not disclose your number of daily active users?

Twitter reports the number of monthly active users, which stood at 328 million for two quarters. The company tells investors to focus instead on the percentage growth of people who use it daily, which has increased more than 10 percent in each of the last three quarters. But Twitter doesn’t say what that percentage represents.

In a May 10 letter, the SEC asked for Twitter to explain that choice, and “tell us how the percentage change information provides an investor with a clear understanding of user engagement on your platform.”

In the company’s lengthy response, it argued that showing growth was more important than showing the number. In fact, Twitter said, showing the number of DAUs would invite unfair comparison to Facebook, which calculates its number including people who use its separate Facebook messaging application. “Investors would not be able to compare performance between the Company and this other company,” San Francisco-based Twitter wrote. Facebook has six times the number of monthly users as Twitter.

Twitter doesn’t want it to be easy for investors to calculate its daily user number. The company used to say what proportion of monthly users also visited daily, but the number only applied to its top 20 markets. It told the SEC that it didn’t want to disclose a ratio because it “would indirectly disclose the absolute number of DAU,” shifting focus away from the growth percentage, which Twitter says is more important.

Twitter faced questions about the number on its earnings call last week, too. It put out a clarification statement after the report, giving two clues about the number: that daily users make up less than 50 percent of monthly users, and that there’s a lot of room for growth.

On July 3, the SEC told Twitter it was satisfied with their answers. But some analysts aren’t.

“It takes guts to make the claim that the percentage change is more important than the absolute number of daily users, especially considering that’s the primary driver” of Twitter’s business model, said James Cakmak, an analyst at Monness Crespi Hardt & Co. He estimates that Twitter’s DAUs are from 80 million to 100 million, compared with Facebook’s 1.32 billion and Snap’s 166 million.