Twitter 2Q results soar, stock flies high

NEW YORK – The little blue bird is flying high. Stronger-than-expected financial results pushed Twitter’s stock sharply higher on Tuesday after the short messaging service said its revenue more than doubled in the second quarter.

The San Francisco-based company’s stock jumped 29.6 per cent to $50.01 in extended trading after the results came out.

Twitter posted a net loss of $144.6 million, or 24 cents per share, in the April-June period. That compares with a loss of $42.2 million, or 32 cents per share, a year earlier when Twitter was still a private company.

Adjusted earnings were 2 cents per share in the latest quarter, beating analysts’ expectations of a loss of 1 cent, according to FactSet.

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Revenue was $312.2 million, up from $139.3 million.

Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting lower revenue of $283.3 million.

Mobile advertising revenue was $224 million, or 81 per cent of the quarter’s total ad revenue. In the first quarter, mobile ad revenue amounted to about 80 per cent of total ad revenue.

“Our strong financial and operating results for the second quarter show the continued momentum of our business,” said CEO Dick Costolo in a statement. “We remain focused on driving increased user growth and engagement, and by developing new product experiences, like the one we built around the World Cup, we believe we can extend Twitter’s appeal to an even broader audience.”

Investors have been worried about Twitter’s ability to expand its user base and appeal to a mass market. The service had 271 million average monthly users as of the end of June, up 24 per cent from a year earlier and up 6 per cent from the end of March.

Analysts were expecting 266 million users.

Twitter went public last November, setting a price of $26 per share for its stock, which then soared amid investor demand. The stock peaked in December at $74.73 and then declined sharply. On Tuesday, it closed at $38.59 before the after-hours surge.