Is Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) finally getting the break it deserves? The California-based online giant has had some struggles lately, all of which were sparked by the controversy surrounding the 2016 presidential election and the role that fake news played in the shocking and disappointing outcome.
Twitter has also been scrutinized for not doing enough to eliminate the offending and controversial tweets President Donald Trump seems to insist on publishing every week or so. As for the conversation regarding fake news being spread on the platform, I find that to be an undeniable fact. However, I’ve never felt that it was right to put all of the blame on the company. Mistakes are made, and based on today’s results, it seems everything is finally starting to calm down. At least, on the negative side of things.
What Happened?
On Thursday, Twitter posted its Q4 net income, which came to $91 million. This figure was made possible because the company cut costs by roughly 28% in the quarter. It seems now that this was the right decision as it has allowed for Twitter to record a net profit for the first time since it went public five years ago.
Twitter also reported that its revenue came in at $731.6 million. As a point of reference, Wall Street was forecasting the company to bring in a revenue of $686 million. As someone who is a fan of the platform, I have nothing but praise for the company’s revenue figure absolutely torpedoing the expectations of analysts.
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What else did the Q4 report say? Well, Twitter posted that, on an adjusted basis, earnings came in at 19 cents per share. Again, this beat Wall Street expectations, with analysts forecasting the company would see earnings of 14 cents per share. Further, the company disclosed that it saw 330 million monthly average users in the fourth quarter. This is up roughly 4% from last year.
To no surprise, shares of Twitter reaped the benefits of the financial report during Thursday’s trading session. In fact, the stock increased as much as 27% before the market even opened. Now, as of this writing, Twitter is trading at $29.98, which puts the stock up $3.06, or 11.30%.
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