This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Twitter Beats Adjusted Earnings, Misses On Users: Stock Dumps Then Jumps
On the surface, Twitter's Q4 numbers were good, with the company clocking in $479MM in revenue and $0.12 in EPS on consensus estimates of $454MM and $0.06. Of course, on a GAAP basis things were much uglier, with the company reported a loss per share of $0.20 cents in Q4, and a net loss of $577.8 million for 2014. However, as everyone knows, TWTR's value is not about its numbers, or rather adjusted numbers, but its user growth: after all the company has about a billion monthly active users it needs to catch up in order to compete with Facebook in total user engagement. And it was here that the company stumbled.
As the chart below shows, in Q4, the company reported 288MM MAU, which while an increase of 20% from a year ago, but just 2% higher than Q3 - the smallest sequential increase in Twitter's recent history - and was also well below the estimate of 295MM. And more problematic, TWTR's US users, the bread and butter of corporate ad revenues, were 63MM, up 17% from a year ago, but unchanged from the previous quarter: also the first time there has been no quarterly growth in the US in company history.
To be sure, the company quickly tried to cover up this big miss by saying the 288 million number "reflects a loss of approximately 4 million net Monthly Active Users in the fourth quarter due to changes in third party integrations." It was unclear what this means or how TWTR quantified how many users it "would have gained if"...
This means that TWTR's favorite non-GAAP metric, "timeline view/MAU" is now in clear stall mode having declined for two quarters in a row both globally and internationally, with the US posting a modest increase from 774 to 778.
All of the above is making many wonder if indeed the user growth has finally stalled.
So what about the financials?
This is what Adjusted EBITDA looked like:
However, as with every dot com 2.0 company, the biggest value contributor was once again the addbacks that made EBITDA, and non-GAAP EPS, what they are for kneejerk-reaction purposes. In short: $267 million in EBITDA addbacks.
And finally, for those asking, here is the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation: a table only TSLA could love.
For now the algos are sufficiently confused, sending the stock tumbling at first, then spiking.
Source: Twitter
»
- 4221 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Never used Twitter, so tell me, what does this company do? How do they make money?
'Ad eyeballs' just like .dot com bubble 1.
The stock is in strong hands.....I mean thumbs.....
I am the World's Most Interesting Day Trader, and only look at NON-GAAP NUMBERS, BITCHEZ!
I don't even want to hear/know about that GAAP Trash!
The stock is in strong hands.....I mean thumbs.....
If you haven't looked for a Twitter account in the last 4 weeks, you are no longer counted as not-tweeting.
I see what you did there. Very good.
All anyone needs to know about TWITter is in the first paragraph:
"on a GAAP basis things were much uglier, with the company reported a loss per share of $0.20 cents in Q4, and a net loss of $577.8 million for 2014. However, as everyone knows, TWTR's value is not about its numbers, or rather adjusted numbers, but its user growth: after all the company has about a billion monthly active users it needs to catch up in order to compete with Facebook in total user engagement.
Another company that makes nothing, does nothing, services nothing, and produces nothing that ultimately will eventually be worth nothing once it assumes its resting pace in the ash bin of history alongside Facefuck. Right now advertisers are swimming in cash but at the same time are desperateky trying to carve out SALES to people who have no MONEY. Once that spigoit is run dry BECAUSE IT MUST BE then these do nothing databases will not have the revenue to support their insane expenses.
On that note just WTF does Twitter and Facebook SPEND money on? How is it that they are blowing through so much cash? Is it the electric bill? Labor?
Oh, wait I forgot. It's 2015. Profits don't matter anymore. Jeff Bezos taught us that.
What is Twitter?
It's a public outing service for twits.
I believe a twit is a pregnant gold fish -- needs clarification.
In other news - Vz announces 5bln share buy-back. Interesting given that VZ CFO promised no repurchase on the table until 2017...
http://seekingalpha.com/news/1615653-verizon-authorizes-100m-share-buyba...
They don't make money. That's the joke.
They make up for that in volume
like the change bank from the SNL commercial.
Cause we all know if you are negative $100 million in the bank, you really actually have $200 million to spend.
It doesn't matter what the real numbers are, all that will be reported is whatever makes stocks go up. Even if the number came out a unicorn's ass.
That's like the price action chart that spoos drew.
Just replace the label "TWITTER 4Q AVG ..." with "ECB" and "MAU drop .. " with "Europe Open".
Hey I want to keep up with Kim Kardashian and Arthur Levitt tweets...........very important...lol
Twitter is about 'how to collect as much possible personal information as possble' in order to sell that information
Twitter is about 'how to target as many ads as possible at users' in order to sell that to advertisers
Twitter is about 'how to collect as much 'what's hot now' information' in order to pre-sell that to advertisers
Twitter is about 'the worst thing you can do from a privacy standpoint' -- except for Facebook!
Keep the narcotics money flowing.