Twitter Trades Higher As Investors Ponder Potential Subscription Service

Shares of Twitter Inc TWTR gained more than 6% on Wednesday as investors pondered reports of a new subscription service.

What Happened: Author Aaron Edelheit was among the first to highlight Twitter's work on a subscription service code-named Gryphon. The company confirmed in a job posting it's "building a subscription platform" and it's "a first for Twitter."

The company is hiring a full-stack engineer to help lead the Payment and Subscription client work.

Subscriptions are coming to Twitter. The team working on it is code name Gryphon. Buckle up the stock is about to go on an epic run. Hat tip to alli on VIC for finding this: https://t.co/B3Hh0Mbiws

— Aaron Edelheit (@aaronvalue) July 7, 2020

The social media company is likely now in a position to offer a subscription service after spending 1.5 years reengineering its ad platform, according to Edelheit.

Journalist Matthew Keys noted Twitter's job listing suggests a subscription service would be offered to Twitter users or sold to other companies.

The subscription service was teased in a job listing posted this month. The listing suggests the subscription service could be offered to Twitter users or sold to other companies. https://t.co/gnsrb83Lez https://t.co/eqqhyQjqxM

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) July 8, 2020

Why It's Important: Twitter commented in a blog post on how it's building an ad platform architecture for the future, but some users were quick to raise concerns over the timeline.

Darren Rovell said he projected Twitter's subscription model would have been worth at least $4.5 billion annually in 2016 and it's worth more than that today.

Projected the Twitter subscription model was worth at least $4.5 billion annually in 2016, think it’s more than that now. Question is: How many more years will they make us wait? https://t.co/KlIY5vTpLL https://t.co/2NJMhyJxCD

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) July 8, 2020

One user manny bonitatibus commented that rival social media platforms are "eating Twitters' lunch." The post also noted Twitter's track record of prior launches is far from stellar.

"Twitter building new platform for the future, so boo when will it be ready 10yrs from now," the tweet said.

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