Active User Battle: Twitter vs. Facebook

Shares of Twitter TWTR soar over 20 percent after it reported positive Q2 earnings results on Tuesday after the market close.

Social media analyst draw attention to monthly active users (MAU) counting the amount of active users over a 30 day span.

Twitter MAU reaches an all time high of 271 million with 60 million domestically and 211 million internationally. Timeline views increased 10 percent from the prior quarter to 173 billion, contributing to active users volume.

The largest surprise displaced in Twitters most recent quarter was its mobile advertising, generating 81 percent of Twitters total ad revenue in Q2, up 67 percent year-over-year. Data licensing and other revenue made a total of $35 million in the second quarter quarter, increase by 90 percent year-over-year.

Social network competitor Facebook FB released its Q2 earnings on July 23, 2014. Strong results in active users, announcing 829 million daily active users (DAU), a three percent increase from its previous quarter and 1.3 billion MAUs, a three percent increase from its previous quarter. Facebook report just over 1 billion mobile MAU with 399 million recognized as mobile-only MAU.

The comparison of Facebook and Twitter is difficult due to Facebook having over seven times market cap and nearly five times as many users than Twitter. Neither social network show signs of growth maturing but Twitter may hold more upside potential to come.

Facebook generated strong advertising revenue of $2.6 billion in its second quarter, increasing by 18 percent from Q1. Twitter reported advertising revenue of $277 million in Q2, increasing by over 22 percent since its previous quarter. Facebook's Q2 advertising revenue is 9.66x Twitters, while Facebook's total revenue is 9.3x Twitters.

In comparison to MAUs Facebook has over one billion more MAUs than Twitter.

Twitters strong suite in mobile advertising may be smaller than Facebook's mobile penetration, but its continuous heavy growth outperforms Facebook's mobile ad growth displaying more potential for future upsides.

Twitter scored the most goals during the World-Cup. Facebook reported a large increase in users during the World Cup presenting 350 million relative users posts and generating three billion interactions, while Twitter reporting 6.5 billion views of tweets on and off Twitter during the Germany-Brazil game alone.

Both Facebook and Twitter reported solid International results, despite Facebook's 21 percent increase quarter-over-quarter in international revenue, Twitter more than double from its Q1 results, contributing to nearly one-third of its total revenue.