The fourth quarter was a mixed bag for Twitter Inc. While it posted its first profitable quarter, it also failed to add any net new users.
Twitter reported on Thursday that it generated a $91 million profit on roughly $732 million in revenue (roughly 88.0% of which was advertising revenue). That’s the first time that Twitter has reported year-over-year growth in the past year.
The social network’s advertising revenue totaled roughly $644 million in the fourth quarter, a period when retailers are frantically seeking to drive consumers to shop on their sites. That’s about 1% more than the nearly $638 million it reported a year earlier. Excluding a $40 million write down of TellApart, the retargeting platform it bought in 2015, the social network’s ad revenue increased roughly 7.3%.
User growth also remains a challenge for Twitter. The social network has 330 million monthly active users, the same number it reported having in the third quarter and just a 3.8% increase from the 318 million it had a year earlier.
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For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, Twitter reported:
- $731.6 million in total revenue, up 2.0% from $717.2 million a year earlier.
- $644.3 million in ad revenue, up 1.0% from $637.8 million.
- 330 million monthly active users, up 3.8% from 318 million in the same period a year earlier, and unchanged from the previous quarter.
- Net income of $91.1 million compared with a $167.1 million loss a year earlier.
For the full year, Twitter reported:
- $2.443 billion in total revenue, down 3.4% from $2.530 billion a year earlier.
- $2.110 billion in ad revenue, down 6.1% from $2.248 billion.
- $108.1 million net loss compared with a $456.9 million loss a year earlier.