Twitter and Snapchat surpass earnings expectations

23 Jul 2021

Image: © Rey/Stock.adobe.com

Twitter’s revenue was up by 74pc and Snapchat’s was up by 116pc as both companies continued to better leverage their growing user bases.

Twitter and Snapchat have both soundly beaten analysts’ expectations for their second-quarter earnings.

Twitter’s adjusted earnings-per-share (EPS) was $0.20, while Wall Street predicted just $0.07. Revenue was $1.19bn, representing 74pc year-on-year growth, versus an expected $1.06bn. Its monetisable daily active user (DAU) count was a hair under predictions at 206m but saw growth of 11pc since this time last year.

The results suggest Twitter is monetising its user base well at the moment. In a letter to shareholders, the company said that there was a “broad increase in advertiser demand” during the quarter, which contributed to an 87pc increase in advertising revenue to $1.05bn.

All in all, the company posted a quarterly net income of $65.6m, compared with a net loss of $1.38bn in the second quarter of last year.

Q2 of 2021 has been an eventful time for the social media giant, seeing it retire Fleets after just eight months of operation, begin the roll-out a premium version of its service called Twitter Blue, expand monetisation options for creators, and acquire news start-up Scroll.

“As we enter the second half of 2021, we are shipping more, learning faster and hiring remarkable talent” said CEO Jack Dorsey. “There’s a tremendous opportunity to get the whole world to use Twitter.”

The company’s CFO, Ned Segal, added: “We delivered better-than-expected performance across all major products and geographies while growing our audience. We continued to make significant progress on our direct response and brand products with updated ad formats, improved measurement and better prediction. We are driving more value for advertisers with our strong push into performance-based advertising and expanded offerings for small and medium-sized businesses.”

Snapchat had a similarly strong quarter. The company’s EPS was $0.10, compared to a loss of $0.09 the year before and soundly beating an expected $0.01 loss. Its revenue reached $982m, a 116pc increase and thoroughly ahead of the $845m analysts had predicted. Its DAU reached 293m, a 23pc increase.

Snap Inc has struggled to reach profitability since its inception, but this period marked significant progress. Its net loss was $152m, an improvement of 53pc year-on-year.

Addressing shareholders, Evan Spiegel, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said: “Our second-quarter results reflect the broad-based strength of our business and the hard work of our team as we execute to serve our community and partners.

“We are pleased by the progress our team is making with the development of our augmented reality platform, and we are energised by the many opportunities to grow our community and business around the world.”

The strong performance of both companies comes after months of competition with up-and-coming platform Clubhouse, which has shaken up the social media market significantly. Competition between platforms to attract the best content creators, especially in the realm of video, is also intensifying.

Jack Kennedy is a freelance journalist based in Dublin

editorial@siliconrepublic.com