Twitter Q4 Profit Misses Estimates, Revenue Up 11%; MDAU Growth At 21%

(RTTNews) - Twitter, Inc. (TWTR) recorded a year-over-year growth in monetizable daily active usage (mDAU) of 21 percentage for its fourth quarter. The company said it has reached a new milestone in the fourth quarter with quarterly revenue in excess of $1 billion, with particular strength in US advertising.

For 2020, the company's objectives include: increasing revenue durability; and enabling anyone, anywhere to work at Twitter. To support these objectives, Twitter plans to grow headcount by 20% or more in 2020, especially in engineering, product, design, and research.

The company's fourth-quarter non-GAAP net income per share was $0.25 compared to $0.31, a year ago. On average, 31 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report profit per share of $0.29, for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Fourth-quarter net income was $119 million, compared to net income of $255 million, previous year. Earnings per share was $0.15 compared to $0.33, last year. Excluding the income tax benefit from the release of deferred tax assets valuation allowance in the same period last year, adjusted net income per share was $0.15 compared to $0.17.

Fourth-quarter revenue was $1.01 billion, an increase of 11% year-over-year. Analysts expected revenue of $996.74 million for the quarter. Advertising revenue was $885 million, an increase of 12%.

For the fourth-quarter average monetizable daily active users (mDAU) were 152 million, compared to 126 million, previous year, and compared to 145 million in the previous quarter. Average US mDAU were 31 million, compared to 27 million, last year, and compared to 30 million in the previous quarter.

For the first-quarter, Twitter projects: operating income to be between break even and $30 million; and total revenue to be between $825 million and $885 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report revenue of $872.64 million.

Shares of Twitter, Inc. were up more than 4% in pre-market trade on Thursday.