Twitter Beats Expectations With Profitable Quarter

Twitter's fourth-quarter revenue came in at $732 million, up 2% year over year. Ad revenue increased 1% over the prior year to $644 million. Without the TellApart business, which the company no longer operates, ad revenue was up 8% year over year. While monthly active users, or MAUs, did not grow from the previous quarter, the ad revenue was up 28% sequentially, which we believe indicates the company’s ability to more effectively monetize its users. Plus, we think the higher user engagement, shown by the 12% year-over-year growth in daily active users, DAUs, is likely helping Twitter generate higher return on investment for its advertisers, resulting in advertisers coming back and/or increasing their Twitter ad dollars. In our view, the video ad format also continues to attract advertisers to the Twitter platform.

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