Tag Archives: twtr

Will Twitter Show A Reversal In User Declines With Q1 Earnings?

Under pressure from slowing user growth, Twitter ( TWTR ) is set to report first-quarter earnings after the market close Tuesday. It’s a busy week for social networking stocks, with Facebook ( FB ) reporting Wednesday and LinkedIn ( LNKD ) on Thursday. Twitter reports during a rough period for the company. Revenue growth has declined year over year for the past six quarters, and user growth has declined the past four quarters. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Twitter to report Q1 revenue of $607.8 million, up 39% year over year, with earnings per share minus items rising 43%, to 10 cents. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said data from research firm ComScore was “slightly negative” for Twitter, indicating a slowdown in unique visitors from Q4. He also said a survey of ad professionals conducted by RBC and Ad Age showed mixed results for Twitter. “We are incrementally more cautious on the stock’s prospects as a result,” wrote Mahaney, who has a sector perform rating on Twitter stock and a price target of 23. Since Twitter reported Q1 2015 earnings that revealed trouble ahead, the stock has plunged to 17 from 51. Twitter stock closed Monday at 17.09, down a fraction. In Q4, average monthly active users at Twitter rose 9% year over year, to 320 million, about 3 million less than Wall Street had expected. The Q4 growth was the same as Q3. Growth has cooled from 18% in Q1 2015, 15% in Q2 and 11% in Q3. The slowdown continues despite a series of new features Twitter has rolled out in the past year, including video tool Periscope and Moments. The company has overhauled management, starting with the return of co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO in October. Dorsey is also the founder and CEO of payment processing firm Square ( SQ ). Facebook Q1 earnings come after the close Wednesday. The consensus on Facebook revenue is $5.25 billion, up 48%. Analysts expect EPS ex items to hit 62 cents a share, also up 48%. LinkedIn reports after the close Thursday. The stock bombed 44% to a three-year low after LinkedIn posted Q4 earnings on Feb. 5, as Q1 guidance widely missed estimates. LinkedIn acknowledged that a reshuffling of product strategy will impact short-term revenue growth in favor of the long term. The consensus on revenue is $829.5 million, up 39%. EPS is figured at 60 cents, up 5%.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter Earnings Put Light On Social Networks

Social networking, a top tech trend the past decade, will get the spotlight with earnings reports next week, starting with Twitter ( TWTR ) on Tuesday and followed by Facebook ( FB ) on Wednesday and LinkedIn ( LNKD ) on Thursday, all after the market close. Twitter reports during a tumultuous period for the company. Revenue growth has decelerated for the past six quarters as user growth has slowed for four consecutive quarters . The slowdown continues despite a series of new features Twitter has rolled out in the past year, including video tool Periscope and Moments. The company has overhauled management, starting with the return of co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO in October. Dorsey is also the founder and CEO of payment processing firm Square ( SQ ), thus is juggling two heavy clubs. Since Twitter reported Q1 2015 earnings that revealed trouble ahead, the stock has plunged to 17 from 51. Twitter stock fell 1.6% in the stock market today , closing at 17.23. The consensus estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters is for Twitter to report Q1 revenue of $607.8 million, up 39% year over year, with earnings per share minus items rising 43%, to 10 cents. Facebook Hopes To Keep Q4 Momentum Facebook Q1 earnings will come after the close Wednesday. The company soundly beat Q4 earnings expectations on booming mobile ad revenue, with the stock up 16% since then, though shares fell 2.5% Friday, to 110.56. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a 10-year strategy for Facebook at its annual F8 Developer Conference last week. He emphasized pushing its Messenger chat platform deeper into the business world with chatbots, enhancing Live video with virtual reality and expanding the social network to remote regions of the world. Analysts say the monetization strategy of Messenger will closely follow that of Instagram, with both platforms seen becoming multibillion-dollar businesses . The consensus on Facebook revenue is $5.25 billion, up 48%. Analysts expect EPS ex items of 62 cents, also up 48%. In what could be a long-term nightmare scenario for Facebook, users are feeling weary about posting personal reflections and updates on their daily lives. LinkedIn, the business networking site for professionals, saw its stock bomb 44% to a three-year low after the company posted Q4 earnings on Feb. 5, as its Q1 guidance widely missed estimates. LinkedIn acknowledged that a reshuffling of product strategy will impact short-term revenue growth in favor of the long term. LinkedIn stock has recovered about 10% since that 44% drop. It fell a fraction Friday, to 119.45. The consensus on revenue is $829.5 million, up 39%. EPS is figured at 60 cents, up 5%.

Twitter Banned, But Hires China Exec To Boost Advertising ‘Success’

Twitter ( TWTR ) has hired a new exec to head up its China division as it looks to court local businesses for advertising, even though the government has banned the social media service from operating on China’s mainland since 2009. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced the appointment of Managing Director for China Kathy Chen in a tweet late Thursday. “A big welcome to Twitter, @KathyChen2016! She joins us as our MD for China!” Jack Dorsey’s post said. In response Chen tweeted, “We have many ways to connect China to the world.” San Francisco-based Twitter opened an office in Hong Kong a year ago to court Chinese companies wanting to advertise their products and services to its millions of users around the globe. The microblogging service has seen 340% growth in its number of Chinese advertisers since then, according to a report in the South China Morning Post quoting Shailesh Rao, Twitter vice president for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Emerging Markets. Major Chinese advertisers for Twitter include brands such as Lenovo Group and Huawei Technologies, as well as China media outlets like the state-owned Xinhua news agency and People’s Daily, the report said. “Because of the success we’ve seen, we want to expand the investment we’re making” in the region, said Rao. Twitter China Chief Worked At Microsoft, Cisco Chen is a veteran information technology executive who previously worked at Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Cisco Systems ( CSCO ). She will take over from Peter Greenberger, the former director of emerging markets, Greater China and Russia. Greenberger is now the Asia-Pacific head of global brands and agencies at Twitter, according to the report. Twitter got a price-target cut Thursday from investment bank Morgan Stanley , citing falling user engagement and shrinking user growth at the social media site. Morgan Stanley also trimmed its projections for Twitter’s user growth. Twitter will end this year with 307.1 million global users, the investment bank now says, down from its original projection of 310.6 million. The amount of time that each user spends on the site is also declining, said Morgan Stanley, with those lower engagement levels holding back revenue growth. In Q4, Twitter’s U.S. mobile users averaged just 2.7 minutes daily on the site, said Nowak, compared to 40.5 mobile minutes for music streaming service Pandora Media ( P ), 30.3 minutes for Facebook ( FB ) and eight minutes for YouTube, owned by Alphabet ( GOOGL ) subsidiary Google. The figures are based on research from ComScore and Morgan Stanley. Twitter will capture a 1.4% share of net digital ad spending this year, up marginally from a 1.3% share in 2014, according to a March survey from eMarketer. Google ranks first, with a 30.9% share of net digital ad spending; Facebook ranks second, with a 12.0% share of the total market, which eMarketer estimated will reach $186.8 billion market in 2016. Twitter stock was up 1% in midday trading on the stock market today , near 18. Alphabet stock was up a fraction, while Facebook stock was down a fraction.