UK is the fourth-largest country for Twitter users in the world, with 80% accessing it with mobile phones
Twitter now has 10m active users in the UK and 140m worldwide, the company reveals, underlining the rapid growth in the micro-blogging network since it launched just six years ago.
Twitter has had an increasing impact on everyday life - over the past year it has been blamed for inciting riots – a charge that was disproved – and of undermining "superinjunctions" involving, among others, Ryan Giggs and Jeremy Clarkson.
The network, which limits users to 140-character updates – the same length as a text message – has also changed the dynamic between celebrities and the media, with the likes of writer and actor Stephen Fry, singer Lily Allen, footballer Joey Barton and politician John Prescott attracting millions of followers who they now have direct contact with .
Independent studies suggest the UK is the fourth-largest country for Twitter users in the world, after the US, Brazil and Japan.
Twitter says that compared to other online content sites, its users are particularly active in generating content: 60% have contributed either through tweeting or posting a picture or other content, compared to the world's biggest video site YouTube, where sources say just 1% of users ever posts a video.
However, the figure for active users suggests a high attrition rate: a study by research firm Semiocast in January claimed about 383m Twitter profiles had been created up to the start of 2012, with about one-third of those in the US. That suggests that about two-thirds of accounts had fallen quiet.
The figures, revealed for the first time by the company, say that 8m account owners who logged in to the company's site in the past 30 days did so from a mobile phone, compared to Twitter's global average of 55%. That puts the UK far ahead of the world average, indicating the breadth too of mobile use.
Although most users are almost certain to log in via a desktop or laptop computer at some point, a Twitter UK spokeswoman said "we have seen growth in the number of people signing up from a mobile". That, she said, "goes back to the DNA of Twitter" – which was originally set up in 2006 as a service that would work over SMS, which is why its messages are limited to 140 characters.
Twitter use in the UK came into sharp focus in summer 2011 when it was initially blamed for inciting some of the riots in London and other cities.
It also saw a sharp peak in use in spring 2011 after the footballer Ryan Giggs sued the company when a number of tweets appeared on the service alleging that he had had an affair with the model Imogen Thomas – a claim which at the time was covered by a superinjunction.
The profusion of tweets led Lord Judge, the lord chief justice on the case, to complain that users of Twitter were "totally out of control when it comes to privacy injunctions and court orders".
Following separate court cases, a man who threatened the Tory MP Louise Mensch and another who tweeted abuse about footballer Fabrice Muamba have been found guilty of breaking the law.
The company , which celebrates its first year of operating with a UK office on 1 June, is pointing to its growing success as an advertising platform, which chief executive Dick Costolo is driving through "promoted" tweets, trends and other paid-for content, known collectively as "Promoted Products".
Since September last year, organisations including the British Heart Foundation, Cadbury and Absolute Radio have used Twitter to promote their services, while many others have taken advantage of the platform.
Among those was the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, London, which tweeted on 24 February 2011 that without help, it would have to close its doors in nine months because it would be unable to pay back a bank loan. The day after posting the tweet – which was picked up and became part of the "trending tweets" for the capital – the shop sold enough books to cover its bank loan repayments for nearly two months. That was followed by broader interest around the world; the shop is now trading healthily.
