Twitter Inc. reported weaker-than-expected quarterly advertising revenue and user growth on Thursday and forecast revenue short of Wall Street targets, indicating that a turnaround plan has yet to bear fruit for the social networking site.
Still, Twitter said it made “meaningful progress” toward its goal of reaching 315 million users and $7.5 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2023, and said user growth should accelerate in the United States and internationally this year, Reuters reported.
Twitter has been pursuing big projects such as audio chat rooms and newsletters to end long-running stagnation and attract new users and advertisers. But the quarterly results raised questions about Twitter’s plan as analysts had expected faster signs of progress.
Monetizable daily active users, or users who see ads, grew 13 percent to 217 million in the fourth quarter ended December 31, missing consensus estimates of 218.5 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. That was up from 211 million users in the previous quarter.
Twitter also announced a new $4 billion share repurchase program, on top of the $2 billion in buybacks it approved in 2020.
“Twitter’s stock buyback plan is helping investors overlook the company’s relatively weak results and outlook,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com.
Advertising revenue for the fourth quarter grew 22 percent year over year to $1.41 billion, missing analysts’ estimates of $1.43 billion.
The company forecast first-quarter total revenue of $1.17 billion to $1.27 billion. The mid-point of that range is below Wall Street’s average target of $1.26 billion.