Moments ago TWTR reported Q2 earnings which beat EPS expectations of a 1 cent loss, posting non-GAAP EPS of $0.02 (let's ignore that the GAAP EPS was actually -$0.24 and that GAAP Net Loss was $144.6 million, much worse than the $42.2 million a year ago, all driven by stock-based compensation expense, because clearly retaining employees is never a factor when calculating earnings).
And yet, the stock has exploded by 30% after hours on what appears to be a super squeeze after hours, as the company also reported revenue of $312 million up from $139.3 million a year ago and some $54MM in EBITDA, up 461% Y/Y. This is just a little awkward for the Federal Reserve which some 2 weeks ago was warning about a bubble in social networking stocks, just before first Facebook and now Twitter have exploded higher on what can best be described as yet another massive short squeeze of those who decided to not fight the Fed on this one.
Anyway, what everyone is looking for was the user metrics so here they are.
Monthly Active Users: 271 million, up 24% Y/Y, vs expectations of 267MM. Recall that this is where TWTR had a big miss last quarter.At the same time, US growth was +3 million users to 60 million, the same as in Q1, and a modest improvement from previous quarters.
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Twitter's preferred non-GAAP metric, Timeline views, was 173 million, up 15% from a year ago, even if the US number of 47 million was only a 1 million sequential increase from Q1, less than the 5 million increase from Q4, if certainly an improvement from that big drop between Q3 and Q4.
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The one place where Twitter stumbled was in Timeline Views per MAU because while the first rose, the second rose faster, leading to a decline in the overall metric on a Y/Y basis, and Y/Y and sequential for the US.
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Still, far more important were revenue and EBITDA.This is how they did in Q2:
And EBITDA:
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And finally, revenue per 100 timeline views saw a solid 100% increase Y/Y from $0.80 to $1.60, the closest comparable metric to the trusty old CPM. However, at $3.87 for the US, we doubt there will be much upside opportunity going forward.
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Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Twitter announced that less than 5% of all accounts are fake: a claim most will certainly take with a huge grain of salt.
For now, however, the momentum chasing algos are loving the stock which is up 30% after hours. So will Yellen Capital upgrade the social networking space after these two embarrassments, or will she keep her "Strong Sell" rating" Stay tuned for the FOMC announcement tomorrow afternoon...
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