It’s only taken more than a decade, but Twitter finally seems to have achieved stable profitability.
The company shared its first-quarter earnings today, April 25, and for the second quarter in a row (and the second time ever), it posted a profit. The company brought in profit of $61 million on $665 million in revenue, a jump of 21% on revenue it posted the same quarter last year. It attributed the rise to a modest increase in users, more advertising options, and better execution of its sales strategy.
Twitter now has 336 million monthly active users (about 15% of the number of 2.1 billion users Facebook has), which is a jump of about 3% over the same quarter last year.
Although the company shot past the $606 million in revenue analysts had been expecting Twitter to generate this quarter, it seems that investors remain nonplussed about its successes. The company warned its revenue growth rate would likely fall in the next few quarters, and its user growth remains almost stagnant. While its stock price initially jumped a few percent in pre-market trading, its stock fell by about 4% (around $1) to $29 once the market opened.
Twitter is hoping bets on live video—ranging from shows like Bloomberg’s TicToc, BuzzFeed’s AM to DM, to sports like American football and baseball—as well as surfacing more tweets that people are going to be interested in through enhanced algorithms, are going to help keep people coming back to the social network. And with the current backlash against Facebook properties, perhaps it has a chance. But for now, investors are unimpressed at Twitter’s outlook.