Twitter reports earnings at market close Monday. According to analysts surveyed by FactSet, the social media company is expected to profit by a penny per share and will post revenue of $351.5 million. Twitter has given guidance in the $330-$340 million range. Analysts will also be looking at monthly average user numbers, which they expect to grow by about 17 million.
“Investors eyes are pretty big when it comes to this report,” says Yahoo Finance senior columnist Michael Santoli. “Twitter has been public for almost exactly a year…and in the three quarters that Twitter has reported as a public company they’ve really blown away the forecast to the upside.” He sees both the analyst estimates and company guidance but thinks most people are expecting Twitter to beat both. Santoli, however, doesn’t know how confident he is in their projected user growth numbers.
Wall Street will be looking for more detail on how Twitter is planning on improving user experience and ad platforms.
Twitter (TWTR) is down prior to earnings, clocking in just under $50 per share. The stock shot up to around $70 per share right after its IPO and then came crashing down, bottoming twice around $30. Since Memorial Day, however, the stock has been up over 65%. “That shows you that The Street is starting to build up its expectations of what Twitter can deliver on the bottom line,” says Santoli.
Sell-side analysts are more in the Facebook (FB) camp, says Santoli. People are unsure of Twitter because the user base is smaller and more selective. “I think it’s good for investors that The Street is not completely onboard with [Twitter] because it means there are more converts yet to be had,” he says.
