Half of Donald Trump's Twitter followers are fake, its has been claimed.

The President currently has 31million followers, making him one of the most followed people on Twitter, but many of those accounts have no profile picture or personal information, and were created recently.

That is typically a sign that the profile is a 'bot', a shell account that is run by a computer instead of a real person.

Half of Donald Trump's Twitter followers are fake, according to analysis by Twitter Audit Report

While the President is followed by 31million accounts, many appear to be 'bots' - faceless accounts with no personal information used to bulk up numbers

In fact, analysis by Twitter Audit Report claims that just over 15million of the accounts following Trump are 'fake'.

It seems the proportion of 'fake' accounts following Trump has increased exponentially since he launched his political career.

In a report in April 2016, midway through Trump's presidential campaign, FiveThirtyEight found that of his roughly 8million of his followers, eight per cent appeared to be bogus.

By January 2017, the month of Trump's inauguration, another check by reporter Yashar Ali found that the now-President's 20million followers contained roughly 6million 'fake' accounts, or 32 per cent.

That number has now grown to 15million, though reports that there has been a recent spike in fake accounts following Trump do not appear to be accurate.

The proportion of fake accounts following Trump has also increased - from 8 per cent during the campaign to 49 per cent today - leading to speculation that he is buying followers

Trump's Twitter account has become one of his most powerful weapons, with even nonsense messages such as this one attracting worldwide attention

By comparison, predecessor Barack Obama has more than 89million followers, with only 21 per cent thought to be fake.

The figures have led to speculation by the likes of the New York Daily News that Trump is buying Twitter support, though this has not been verified.

It is possible to buy followers, however, as comedian Joe Mande recently claimed he was able to purchase around 1million for $400.

Trump's Twitter account has become a powerful political tool on the campaign and since he became President, allowing him to communicate directly with supporters and bypass what he describes as 'fake news'.

Even nonsense messages - such as the 'covfefe' tweet he posted on Tuesday night - attract thousands of retweets and likes.