Twitter Reports 97 Percent Revenue Increase

Twitter posted fourth-quarter 2014 revenue of $479 million — up 97% year over year — and beat analysts’ earnings estimates for the period.

The No. 2 social service (behind Facebook) had 288 million average monthly active users in Q4, up 20% from the year-earlier period and a net increase of 4 million from the previous quarter.

According to Variety, Twitter reported a net loss of $125.3 million for the quarter, which included $177 million of stock-based compensation expense. Its adjusted non-GAAP net income excluding that was $79.3 million, or 12¢ per share. Wall Street analysts had projected adjusted EPS of 6¢ and $453 million in revenue, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.

Dick Costolo

“We closed out the year with our business advancing at a great pace,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in announcing the results. “In addition, the trend thus far in Q1 leads us to believe that the absolute number of net users added in Q1 will be similar to what we saw during the first three quarters of 2014.”

Last month, the company noted in its earnings release, Twitter launched a new video feature that lets users capture, edit and share videos up to 30 seconds from within the Twitter mobile app. In addition, the company debuted a recap feature with a “while you were away” heading that displays top tweets, as well as a group-based direct messaging feature for private conversations involving up to 20 people.