Twitter is on the verge of hitting 200 million daily users, but the social platform’s stock price took a big hit on Thursday afternoon after reporting Q1 earnings and sales that narrowly topped Wall Street’s estimates.
Between January and March, Twitter added 7 million new users – pushing the company to 199 million users overall. Analysts had expected the company would add 8 million users during the quarter and hit 200 million global users overall. The company added 1 million daily users in the U.S and closed Q1 with 38 million American users.
Twitter also reported earnings of 16 cents per share — a bit above the 14 cents EPS that analysts had projected — and revenue of $1.04 billion, which was just ahead of the $1.02 billion analysts expected. The bulk of Twitter’s sales came from $899 million in ad revenue. Sales increased 28% year-over-year.
“People turn to Twitter to see and talk about what’s happening, and we are helping them find their interests more
quickly while making it easier to follow and participate in conversations,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement.
Twitter CFO Ned Segal added it was a “solid” start to 2021 for the company and pointed to Twitter’s evolving ad business as a key highlight. But investors didn’t seem to agree with Segal, at least initially, with Twitter’s stock price dropping 9% in after-hours trading to $59.41 per share. After darting to nearly $81 per share earlier this year, Twitter is close to where it opened 2021 at about $55 per share.
Twitter’s Q1 net income was $68 million, compared to a net loss of $8 million during the same time period last year. Looking ahead to Q2, Twitter said it expects sales between $980 million and $1.08 billion.
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