Twitter Profit Meets Estimate, Ex-items

(RTTNews) - Micro-blogging site Twitter Inc (TWTR) said Monday after the markets closed that its third quarter net loss widened from last year, hurt mainly by higher stock-based compensation expense, even as revenue more than doubled thanks to growth in advertising.

The company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, came in line with analysts' expectations but its quarterly revenue beat analysts' forecast.

The company gave a downbeat revenue forecast for the current quarter, but once again raised its full year revenue outlook.

"We had another very strong financial quarter," said Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter. "I'm confident in our ability to build the largest daily audience in the world, over time, by strengthening the core, reducing barriers to consumption and building new apps and services."

Twitter shares are currently losing 10.52% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $48.56, down $1.39 or 2.78%.

Twitter, which had a scintillating IPO in November 2013, said average Monthly Active Users were 284 million for the third quarter, up 23% from a year ago and up 4.8% from a quarter ago. This is slightly slower compared to the second quarter when average Monthly Active Users growth was 23% year-over-year and 6.3% sequentially.

For the third quarter ended September 30, 2014, the San Francisco, California-based company reported a net loss of $175.5 million or $0.29 per share, compared to a net loss of $64.6 million or $0.48 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Excluding items, adjusted net income for the third quarter was $7.0 million or $0.01 per share, compared to an adjusted net loss of $17.2 million or $0.13 per share in the prior year quarter.

On average, 34 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.01 per share for the third quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenue for the third quarter jumped 114% to $361.27 million from $168.58 million in the same quarter last year. Thirty-four analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $351.35 million for the third quarter.

Advertising revenue for the quarter surged 109% year-over-year to $320 million. Mobile advertising revenue was 85% of total advertising revenue.

International revenue climbed 176% year-over-year to $121 million and constituted 34% of total revenue.

Looking forward, the company forecasts fourth quarter revenue of of $440 million to $450 million.

The company raised its full year 2014 revenue outlook to a range of $1.365 billion to $1.375 billion from its prior outlook of $1.31 billion to $1.33 billion.

Analysts currently expect the company to post revenue of $448.18 million for the fourth quarter and $1.36 billion for the full year 2014.