Richard Drew/AP

There was some positive news in Twitter’s third-quarter earnings report, including revenue of $616 million — up 8 percent from last year — but for it to be profitable, the company says, it’ll have to shed several hundred jobs.

While revenue surpassed expectations, The Wall Street Journal says it was the social media company’s “smallest gain and ninth straight period of slowing growth.”

Twitter posted a loss of $103 million for the quarter.

In a letter to shareholders, Twitter reported $545 million in advertising revenue — 90 percent from mobile platforms. In terms of active users, it finished the quarter with a monthly average of 317 million (67 million in the U.S.).

To be more efficient, the San Francisco-based company says it’ll cut around 9 percent of its global workforce, with the heaviest toll falling on sales and marketing units. Twitter had 3,910 employees at the end of the quarter, meaning around 352 jobs will be eliminated.

Twitter wants to be profitable by sometime in 2017; as it tries to get there, users should expect to see more video ads, which the company says is its top revenue-generating format.

In terms of its balance sheet, the company says it’s now holding $3.7 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, and that its adjusted free cash flow grew to around $80 million for the quarter, up from $19 million last year.

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