Twitter (TWTR, $39.76) crushes Q1 earnings expectations, and reports higher-than-expected user count

Twitter’s first quarter earnings turned out to be more than double of what analysts’ expected.

The social networking company’s adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at 37 cents per share, compared to analysts’ estimate of 15 cents (based on a Refinitiv survey).  

The company’s quarterly revenue of $787 million exceeded analysts’ expectations of $776.1 million (based on Refinitiv data).

Twitter’s count of monthly active users (MAUs), excluding SMS users, came in at 330 million, surpassing the 318 million figure expected in a FactSet consensus estimate (as reported by CNBC).

As for monetizable Daily Active Users (mDau), Twitter reported an average figure of 134 million for the first quarter, which is a major increase from 120 million a year earlier. In the U.S. alone, Twitter had 28 million average mDAUs for the first quarter, compared with 26 million in the year-ago quarter. The company defines mDAU as “Twitter users who log in and access Twitter on any given day through Twitter.com or our Twitter applications that are able to show ads”.

Looking ahead, Twitter forecasts that its second-quarter revenue would range between $770 million to $830 million, compared with analysts’ estimates of $783.9 million to $853.6 million in the Refinitiv survey. The company reaffirmed that it expects cash operating expenses to increase about 20% year over year in 2019, owing to its investments in areas like health, conversation, revenue product and sales, and platform.

In recent times, the company has emphasized that it is taking proactive steps to curb abuse and hate speech on its platform.