According to TechCrunch, search referrals fell by more than 1 million per week on average in October, and the company warned that if the trend continues, daily users could decline by a low-double-digit percentage next quarter. In the third quarter, global daily active users were flat at 130.3 million, while US users fell from 53.2 million to 50.7 million.
The logged-in shift is meant to protect the data from scraping and enable licensing deals with model providers, as well as improve targeting: logged-in users are worth more to advertisers. The company did not detail when or exactly how the change will be implemented.
Net income rose 74% to $283 million. Advertising revenue grew 54% to $847 million, and non-advertising revenue, including AI data licensing, grew 35% to $48 million. Average revenue per US daily user rose 53% to $13.82.