Twitter's stock is tanking after the company warned its revenue growth would continue to 'lag' its recent spike in users (TWTR)

Twitter's monthly active users grew to 319 million, up from 317 million in the prior quarter. Daily active use grew 11% year-on-year, up from growth of 7% in the third quarter, which the company credited to product improvements, marketing, and "organic trends." The company still does not state its total daily active user figure.

Twitter's stock was down 10.63% in premarket trading on Thursday.

In a press release, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey described 2016 as a "transformative year" in which the company tried to focus on explaining why people use the platform and making it easier for them to use it.

Dorsey said: "We overcame the toughest challenge for any consumer service at scale by reversing declining audience trends and re-accelerating usage. As a result, in the fourth quarter, daily active usage accelerated for the third consecutive quarter, and we see this strong growth continuing. While revenue growth continues to lag audience growth, we are applying the same focused approach that drove audience growth to our revenue product portfolio, focusing on our strengths and the real-time nature of our service. This will take time, but we're moving fast to show results."

The $638 million Twitter booked in advertising revenue in the quarter was down 1% year-on-year. The company said strength in its video ads was being offset by declines in its marquee ad format — promoted tweets — and direct-response ads.

There was no sign of an anticipated Trump bump in the US in the quarter — nor was there a boost from its big investments in live-streaming video, in which it aired election-night coverage from Bloomberg and BuzzFeed as well as some NFL games. US ad revenue declined 7% year-on-year to $382 million in the quarter.

"The president's use of Twitter has broadened the awareness of how the platform can be used," Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call with investors.

"It shows the power of Twitter," he said, before adding that "it's very hard for a single person to drive sustained growth."

Data licensing and "other revenue" grew 14% in the quarter to $79 million.

Twitter warned its revenue growth would continue to fall behind its audience growth "due to the sales cycle" and said it could also be negatively affected by the "escalating competition for digital advertising spending." Some of that new competition for digital ad dollars is most likely coming from its rival Snapchat, which released filing for its initial public offering last week.

In a letter to shareholders, Twitter said it had four main areas of focus in 2017: to rapidly roll out product changes that make Twitter safer; to invest in its "core use case" and new product areas like live-streaming video; to simplify and differentiate its revenue products; and to make progress toward profitability.

Twitter continues to be a loss-making company, reporting a net loss of $167 million in the quarter and a net loss of $457 million for the full financial year.

This is the first quarterly earnings Twitter has reported without its former sales chief and COO Adam Bain, who announced he was leaving the company in November.

It also follows the headcount reduction Twitter announced in October, which affected about 9% of the company's global workforce. As part of that reorganization, Twitter reduced its number of sales channels from three to two: direct sales and small-to-medium businesses.

Here are the key numbers from Twitter's Q4 earnings:

Q4 revenue: — $717 million versus $740.14 million expected by analysts

Q4 EPS (adjusted): $0.16, versus $0.12 a share expected by analysts

Q1 guidance: Adjusted EBITDA to be $75 million to $95 million, adjusted EBITDA margin to be 17% to 17.5%.

Q4 monthly active users: 319 million, up from 317 million in the prior quarter, and up 4% year-on-year.

Q4 daily active users: up 11% year-over-year.

Dorsey shared his opening remarks from the earnings call on Medium.