Twitter Profit Drops

Twitter reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021 Thursday that missed analyst estimates on earnings, revenue and user growth.

CNBC provides the key numbers:

• Earnings per share: 33 cents, adjusted vs 35 cents expected, according to a Refinitiv survey
• Revenue: $1.57 billion vs $1.58 billion expected, according to Refinitv
• Monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAUs): 217 million vs 218.6 million expected

The company provided revenue guidance for the next quarter ranging from $1.17 billion to $1.27 billion, while analysts had expected about $1.26 billion, according to Refinitv.

Twitter also announced a new $4 billion share buyback program. Half of that will be an accelerated share repurchase with the remaining being repurchased over time, the company said.

Despite the miss in user growth numbers, CFO Ned Segal said in a statement in the earnings release that its previously stated goals of reaching 315 million mDAUs in Q4 2023 and at least $7.5 billion in revenue in 2023 remained the same.

The report is the first under new CEO Parag Agrawal after Jack Dorsey stepped down from the role in November. Agrawal, who previously served as chief technology officer, had been a key player in the company’s efforts to create a decentralized protocol for social media through Project Bluesky.

Agrawal has inherited Dorsey’s aggressive internal goals, including to grow Twitter to 315 million monetizable daily active users by the end of 2023.

Twitter said the impact of Apple’s changes on the company’s revenue remained modest for it as well.

Some 85% of Twitter’s ad revenue comes from brand ads, which are less affected by Apple’s changes than direct-response ads, Twitter's Segal said in an interview. These changes present Twitter with an opportunity rather than a risk, Segal said. “There’s so much room in front of us,” he said.