Twitter Inc Earnings Déjà Vu: User Adds Disappoint Again

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Twitter released the earnings results from its third fiscal quarter after closing bell tonight, posting adjusted earnings of 10 cents per share and revenue of $569 million, a 58% year over year increase. Analysts had been looking for earnings of 5 cents per share and revenue of $559.68 million. In last year’s third quarter, Twitter posted earnings of 1 cent per share and $361 million in revenue.

Twitter posts net losses

The company posted a net loss of $132 million or 20 cents per share, while adjusted EBITDA was $142 million, a 108% increase year over year. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 25%.

Management preannounced earlier this month that revenue and adjusted EBITDA would be at the high end or potentially higher than the guidance they provided in their previous earnings report. Those ranges were $545 million to $560 million in revenue and between $110 and $115 million in adjusted EBITDA.

Ad revenue rose 60% to $513 million, another beat as analysts had been looking for around $503 billion to $504 billion in ad revenue. Mobile ad revenue made up 86% of total ad revenue. U.S. revenue rose 54% to $370 million.

Twitter disappoints on users again

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) reported 320 million monthly active users at the end of the quarter, an 11% year over year increase that missed estimates of closer to 321 million. The microblogging platform has disappointed in monthly active user growth in each of its quarterly reports since it went public. Excluding SMS Fast Followers, Twitter had 307 million users. Mobile users made up about 80% of total monthly active users.

This is Twitter’s first earnings report since announcing that cofounder Jack Dorsey is the new permanent CEO. Questions remain as to whether he can successfully run both Twitter and Square, which recently filed for an initial public offering. It seems likely that this topic will be raised on the company’s earnings call tonight.

Twitter provides guidance

For the fourth quarter, Twitter expects revenue of between $695 million and $710 million and adjusted EBITDA of between $155 million and $175 million.

As of this writing, shares of Twitter were down 12.81% at $27.29 per share.

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