Twilio crushed analysts’ expectations by posting a profit for the fourth quarter.
The cloud communication platform’s adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at 4 cents per share, compared to a loss of -8 cents per share expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv.
Revenue of $548.1 million also topped analysts’ expectation sof $454.8 million.
Contribution of political activity was $23 million in revenue in the quarter. Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app contributed 5% of revenue, down from 6% in the third quarter, according to Khozema Shipchandler, the company’s finance chief.
Twilio added 13,000 active customer accounts in the fourth quarter, compared with an increase of 8,000 in the third quarter. It has a total of 221,000 accounts as of fourth quarter.
“The pandemic accelerated change overnight,” Jeff Lawson, a co-founder of Twilio and its CEO, said on a conference call with analysts. “Health care had to accelerate the adoption of telemedicine and e-commerce companies accelerated their e-commerce plans. Companies that hired more developers and upped their digital game during the pandemic are not going back.”
Looking ahead, Twilio expects an adjusted loss of -12 cents to -9 cents per share for the first quarter, while analysts polled by Refinitiv expect adjusted loss of -2 cents per share. The company forecasts revenue of $526 million to $536 million (representing about 44% to 47% revenue growth), compared to analysts’ estimate of $492.1 million.