Twitter Shares Soar After Reporting Strong User Numbers

Twitter just showed its biggest quarterly user growth ever, fanning a rally in its stock price. CNBC reports the stock soared 15% Thursday, bringing its market cap to $29.8 billion.

The social media company on Thursday reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat revenue and active user expectations but fell short on profit.

Here are the key numbers Twitter reported:

• Earnings per share: 25 cents per share vs. 29 cents expected, according to Refinitiv consensus estimate
• Revenue: $1.01 billion vs. $996.7 million expected, according to Refinitv
• Monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAUs): 152 million vs. 147.5 million total expected, according to FactSet and StreetAccount

Twitter said it experienced the fastest quarterly growth (up 21%) of mDAUs and the metric reached its highest level in Q4. This is only the third time Twitter has reported mDAUs alone, rather the industry standard monthly active users (MAUs) it previously reported. Twitter says mDAUs are not comparable to similar metrics from other companies, which it says are more expansive. The company has said its new figure measures “users who log in and access Twitter on any given day through Twitter.com or our Twitter applications that are able to show ads.”

Ned Segal

Twitter provided Q1 revenue guidance on the lighter end of expectations, between $825 million and $885.

In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box” Thursday, Twitter CFO Ned Segal said the growth in expenses the company expects this year is due to the mDAU growth it has seen in recent quarters.

“When you add 26 million people to the service, when more than half of it is tied directly to product improvements, you build a confidence to continue to execute against your strategy and the execution we’ve been able to deliver over the last few years,” Segal said.

On a call with analysts, CEO Jack Dorsey said Twitter is hoping to hire globally.

“Our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer and we will strive to be a far more distributed workforce which we will use to improve our execution,” Dorsey said.

Segal told analysts on a call following the earnings report that “advertiser sentiment remains strong.” He noted that all but one eligible advertisers (excluding political candidates) that advertised at the Super Bowl also advertised on Twitter.