Twitter saw six million new users join the service in the last three months, as the company hailed a “strong start” to 2018 in its latest financial results.

Monthly active users rose to 336 million in the first quarter of 2018, as the company also reported a second consecutive quarter of profit – and the second profitable quarter in the company’s history.

The social media platform reported revenue for the quarter of 665 million dollars (£477m), an increase of 21% on the same period last year, including profit of 61 million dollars (£43.8m).

The six million new monthly active users marked a 3% increase on the same period last year.

Company founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey said: “The first quarter was a strong start to the year.

“We grew our audience and engagement, marking another quarter of double digit year-over-year DAU (daily active user) growth, and continued our work to make it easier to follow topics, interests, and events on Twitter.

“We also introduced a new framework to think more cohesively about the issues affecting our service, including information quality and safety.

“This holistic approach will help us more effectively address these challenges by viewing them through the broader lens of the health of the public conversation, and we’re encouraged by our initial progress in this area.”

In March, Twitter announced plans to launch a scheme to monitor the “health” of conversations on the platform, and was looking to work with outside experts to create tools capable of reducing negative content on the site.

The social media firm also announced plans to update its privacy policy ahead of the introduction of new GDPR privacy laws in the EU in May, which require firms to clearly state how they process the data of users.

Twitter said the update would make “legalistic or technical language is as clear as possible” and would give users greater access and control over their personal data.