Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) reported its first-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Wednesday. Although this is the first quarter that revenues have dropped for the company since it came public, active user growth helped to balance this out. Not to mention Twitter had an incredible beat on the bottom line. An amazing quarter like this begs the question: Has Twitter turned itself around?
The social media giant said that it had $0.11 in earnings per share (EPS) and $548.3 million in revenue. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters had called for $0.01 in EPS and revenue of $511.91 million. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $0.15 and $594.52 in revenue.
Average monthly active users were pegged at 328 million for the quarter, up 6% year over year and compared with 319 million sequentially. Average daily active usage grew 14% from last year, an acceleration from 11% in the fourth quarter, 7% in the third quarter, 5% in the second quarter and 3% in the first quarter of 2016.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, commented on the active user growth:
We’re proud to report accelerating growth in daily active usage for the fourth consecutive quarter, up 14% year-over-year. We’re delivering on our goal to build a service that people love to use, every day, and we’re encouraged by the audience growth momentum we saw in the first quarter. While we continue to face revenue headwinds, we believe that executing on our plan and growing our audience should result in positive revenue growth over the long term.
In terms of the outlook for the second quarter, the company expects to see adjusted EBITDA in the range of $95 million to $115 million, with the adjusted EBITDA margin between 21% and 21.5%. The consensus estimates are calling for $0.01 in EPS and $511.91 million in revenue for the coming quarter.
Chief Operating Officer Anthony Noto commented on the guidance:
We believe Twitter is the best place to drive brand perception, and we’re continuing to showcase our unique value proposition for advertisers. We’ve received positive early feedback from our ad partners as we highlight the improved return on investment from our audience growth and better pricing. We’re proud of our performance in Live after just 6 months – last quarter alone we streamed more than 800 hours of live premium video and reached 45 million unique viewers, an increase of 31% from the previous quarter. We remain focused on our initiatives to grow revenue by simplifying our revenue product portfolio, communicating our progress to advertisers, and re-allocating resources to our highest revenue generating priorities.
Shares of Twitter were last seen up nearly 11% at $16.26 on Wednesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $14.05 and a 52-week trading range of $13.73 to $25.25.
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