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Twitter reported its Q2 earnings yesterday, just six days after the security breach that commandeered Joe Biden’s, Bill Gates’, and other prominent figures’ twitter accounts. Surprisingly mine wasn’t one of them.
The social media company’s daily user base grew 12% to 186M, which eclipsed estimates of 172M. Twitter did not disclose if all or just most of those added users were Russian meddlers.
At $683M, revenue was 19% less than Q2 2019 and missed the forecasted $702M. Why? @jack attributed the piss poor showing to a pullback in advertising, as companies have cut back their marketing budgets due to the pandemic.
And what else
Of course, Jack was forced to address his biggest f*ck up since he tried to make Periscope a thing. You might remember that on July 15, the twitter accounts of some 130 celebrities and other people way out of your league were hacked. The hackers were able to view the DMs of 36 of those accounts and download personal data from eight. So, you’re saying Obama is not sending me that bitcoin?
As for the job posting that hinted at (read: blatantly mentioned) a subscription service, Jack stated that the effort is in the early stages of exploration, and that the platform would be complementary to the current twitter dot com.
The bottom line…
$TWTR rose 4.09% on the day even though the company fell short on revenue… so what gives?
Investors seem to be encouraged by the user growth and looking ahead to when companies can spend more on advertising again.
CFO Ned Segal stated that companies have gotten creative with planning events, replacing the in-person variety with virtual viewing parties… which could be promoted on twitter.
Not to mention, Twitter has shown how culturally relevant it remains. People have flocked to the app to get updates on ‘rona and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Water Cooler Talking Point(s)
💧 “@Jack I know you’ve been busy, but when will I be getting my blue checkmark? – (Nick, The Water Coolest HQ)
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