The social media company posted third-quarter earnings of 10 cents per share on $569 million in revenue. Wall Street had expected the company to deliver quarterly earnings per share of 5 cents on $560 million in revenue, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.

Twitter just doubled its user base for advertisers

Twitter Inc. finally plans to start making money off the 500 million people who visit its site every month without logging in. Some 320 million logged-in users visited Twitter in its most recent quarter.

The microblogging site on Thursday said it would begin showing branded and promoted tweets — Twitter’s version of ads — alongside “organic” tweets when visitors come to Twitter.

This will initially only be available for Web-based users. It will include those who regularly visit the site through links in Google search.

Shares of Twitter jumped more than 7% to $26.10 on the news. The stock is still down 6% over the last three months, compared with a 5% improvement for the S&P 500.

While 80% of Twitter’s 320 million monthly active users came from mobile devices in the third quarter, many of its logged-off visitors are Web-based, often referred by links at Google search. In May, Google and Twitter struck a deal to give tweets prominent placement on Google search.

The company intends to make the ads viewable on mobile platforms, according to a person familiar with the plans, though it has not set a specific timeline for the rollout.

Twitter has been saying it wants to make money off logged-out users over a year. In October 2014, company executives, grappling with slower-than-expected growth in monthly active users, started to shift the dialogue away from “MAUs” and toward the untapped opportunity of logged-out users.

Third-quarter revenue was up 58% year-over-year to $569 million as Twitter introduced new ad platforms. The company has also been working to make its platform more user friendly to logged-off users, in part through the rollout of Moments, which curates a collection of top tweets and photos about newsworthy events that is available to anyone on the web.

The promoted tweets and videos will initially be viewable only on profile and tweet detail pages.

The program is starting with selected advertisers in the U.S., U.K., Japan and Australia.

Four Twitter executives are leaving the company

In a major shakeup of leadership, Twitter Inc. announced four top executives are leaving the microblogging company, just three months after co-founder Jack Dorsey was officially reinstated as chief executive.

Dorsey said Alex Roetter, senior vice president of engineering; Brian "Skip" Schipper, vice president of human resources; Katie Stanton, vice president of global media; and Kevin Weil, senior vice president of product, had chosen to leave the company.

Additionally, Jason Toff, general manager of the Twitter-owned social media app Vine said he was leaving for Google to work on virtual reality.

It's been a tumultuous seven months for a company that's both embedded in the cultural zeitgeist and derided by Wall Street investors.

In June, Dick Costolo stepped down as Twitter's chief executive as the company struggled to grow beyond its 300 million active users and introduce new features. Dorsey served as interim chief executive for three months before gaining the title permanently in October.

He had previously served as the company’s first chief executive after co-founding Twitter in 2006, but was fired two years later. He also serves as chief executive of the mobile payments company Square.

In October, Twitter said it would cut 336 jobs, or 8% of its global workforce. It introduced new features such as Moments, which curates some of the most buzz-worthy conversations taking place on the platform. There is also talk of increasing the 140-character limit per tweet to 10,000.

Despite those efforts, rumors that the company would be sold continued to persist as recently as last week. Potential bidders included Google, Time Warner and 21st Century Fox.

Twitter has now lost eight of 13 executives who presented at the company’s analyst day last year.

Twitter Shares Jump on Report of Possible Silver Lake Deal

Twitter Inc. shares jumped after a report in The Information said investor Marc Andreessen and private equity firm Silver Lake have “considered some sort of deal.”

The Information said it didn’t know if a deal is “active” now. Spokespeople for Andreessen and Silver Lake declined to comment to the news site.

Twitter shares rose 8.3 percent to $18.20 at 10:38 a.m. in New York. They are still down 65 percent from a peak last April, valuing the company at about $12.4 billion, and making it a less expensive takeover target.

“Twitter has been going nowhere but down,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “It is easy prey for a takeover, and a go-private deal with Silver Lake could be its best bet. Silver Lake is smart, patient money in the IT space.”

Twitter Loses Two More Executives

Jana Messerschmidt and Nathan Hubbard plan to leave social-media company

Twitter Inc. is losing two senior executives, departures that come as the social-media company continues to try to keep key talent on board.

Jana Messerschmidt, a veteran executive who was in charge of global business development, and Nathan Hubbard, who joined to run the commerce team but was most recently leading the global media team, are both planning to leave the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Their positions will be consolidated and taken over by Ali Jafari, the head of revenue in business development, this person said.

A Twitter spokesman confirmed the moves and Mr. Jafari’s appointment. He declined to comment further.

The executives’ departures come just months after a string of other management exits that included the heads of product, engineering and media. Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has sought to retain top talent while at the same time reorganizing the company to streamline priorities and fix product issues.

Besides employee departures, stalled user growth and slowing advertising growth have continued to beset Twitter since Mr. Dorsey began as CEO in October.

Ms. Messerschmidt has been with the company for more than six years, making her one of the few remaining executives who had worked there since before its initial public offering in 2013. During her time there, she oversaw the company’s data-licensing business and signed partnerships with companies such as International Business Machines Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc.

Mr. Hubbard joined Twitter in 2013 from IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s Live Nation where he had been CEO. Mr. Hubbard was charged with starting Twitter’s commerce business, which since the fall of 2014 has tested users’ ability to buy products directly on Twitter through tweets called “buy buttons.” Twitter on Wednesday said it curtailed the development of those ads months ago.

Mr. Hubbard eventually took over as interim global media head following the departure of Katie Stanton in January.

Twitter downgraded to hold from buy at S&P Global on competition concerns

July 26, 2016

Twitter was downgraded to hold from buy at S&P Global as analysts expressed concern over social competition. The analysts said Twitter stock was close to their $21 price target but that the stock hasn't been performing consistently. They expect competition from Facebook, especially in news and live video, as well as Instagram and Snapchat taking up a larger portion of market share. Twitter's live-streaming deals will not have "much of a positive financial impact," they say.

The company posted second-quarter adjusted earnings of 13 cents a share on revenues of 602 million.


Average monthly active users, or MAUs, came in at 313 million.


Wall Street expected the company to post earnings of 10 cents a share on revenue of $607 million, according to a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. Analysts are also expecting Twitter to report that it has hit about 312.1 million monthly active users, according to StreetAccount.

We're seeing a continuation of the trends discussed last quarter with less overall advertiser demand than expected. This is reflected in both our Q2 performance and Q3 outlook.

We’ve been doing business with the world’s most iconic brands for five years. In that time, we’ve delivered significant return on investment (ROI) and brand advertisers have been the single biggest driver of our success, helping us grow from $0 in revenue to the #3 display ad player. Our brand business remains strong in absolute terms, but there are some new challenges that we’re now tackling head-on.

First, there is increased competition for social marketing budgets, which requires us to continuously raise the quality bar on the advertising solutions we bring to market.

Second, while we have worked to drive higher ROI for advertisers (by leveraging our current user base, ad formats and innovations in targeting, creative and measurement), we’re still priced at a premium CPE relative to others. This has proven to be a headwind in growing Twitter’s share of overall social budgets and in our ability to grow faster in both video and performance advertising.

To achieve re-acceleration in our ads business, we need to continue to win our share of social marketing budgets and continue to deliver advertising solutions that extend beyond social marketing -- into performance and premium mobile video budgets. These are large incremental market opportunities with strong growth that we believe Twitter is well positioned to capture over time.

To do this, we’re focused on three main initiatives: building a rich canvas for marketers; driving increased ROI with improved measurement, bidding, and relevance; and increasing scale by leveraging Twitter’s unique total audience. We believe these areas of focus will enable us to deliver value to advertisers of all sizes and capture incremental budgets for both video and direct response ads over time. Here’s an update on each of these key priorities and how we’re executing against them.

Twitter loses another high-ranking exec as revenue falters

Aug 2, 2016

Twitter is losing another communications executive, its second in recent weeks, as the company struggles to shore up revenue.

Global communications lead Natalie Kerris, who joined the company just six months ago, will be replaced by Leslie Berland, the company’s current chief marketing officer, who will take over both roles, according to Buzzfeed News.

The moves may signify yet another change in direction for the company, which revealed a disappointing earnings report that sent the stock plunging 14 percent last Wednesday.

Kerris worked previously at Apple for 14 years, and had indicated plans to retire after leaving the company; and her arrival at Twitter in February 2016 was celebrated as a big ‘get’ for a company looking to re-introduce itself to users and investors. The prior few months had seen the return of Jack Dorsey as CEO, a layoff of 8 percent of its staff in October 2015, and the subsequent exits of several executives in communications, product and commerce.

According to Buzzfeed, which first reported Kerris’ departure, she will be replaced by Leslie Berland, the company’s current chief marketing officer who will take over both roles.

"During her time leading communications at Twitter, Natalie helped us share the Twitter story with the world. We are grateful for her energy and enthusiasm and the impact she’s had, even in this short time,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in a statement.

Rachel Delphin, another communications exec who led product communications, left the company in July to join the cybersecurity startup Tanium.

Just before the recent departures, Twitter hired a new global head of human resources: Renee Atwood, who was recruited from Uber, where she oversaw recruitment throughout the ride-hailing company's period of high growth beginning in 2014. Atwood has her work cut out for her at Twitter: the company's website lists 282 open positions in San Francisco alone.

Twitter shares trading at 7-month high after report of potential deal with Apple

Shares of Twitter Inc. were up 4% Monday, trading at a seven-month high, after a New York Times report that the company has been talking with Apple Inc about putting a Twitter app on Apple TV. The move would add to Twitter's recent partnership with the National Football League.

Twitter’s stock rockets after report a buyout is near

Sept 23, 2016

Shares of Twitter Inc. rocketed toward their best one-day advance in its history, after CNBC reported that the social-media company was closing in on a sale.

The rally reversed earlier sharp losses that followed an analyst downgrade to a bearish stance.

The stock shot up 20.2% in early morning trades to its highest level since Jan. 5. A close at current levels would produce the biggest percentage gain since Twitter went public on Nov. 7, 2013. The second-biggest gain, of 20%, was on July 30, 2014.

CNBC reported early Friday, citing sources close to the situation, that Twitter has engaged in conversations with potential buyers, which reportedly include technology companies Alphabet Inc. and Salesforce.com

While no deal is imminent, and there can be no assurance that a deal will materialize, the board of directors is keen on striking a deal, CNBC reported.

Earlier, the stock had been down nearly 5% ahead of the open after RBC Capital downgraded Twitter to underperform from sector perform, citing concerning data from a survey of advertisers.

Google will not make a Twitter bid; Apple bid unlikely, sources say

Kara Swisher and Kurt Wagner

9 Mins Ago

According to sources close to the situation, Google does not currently plan to make a bid for Twitter. While the search giant has been among the buyers considered most likely to be a contender for social communications company, those familiar with the deal said that the company was not moving forward with an effort to buy it at this time.

In addition, several sources Recode has spoken to this week also said that Apple was also unlikely to be one of the possible suitors, with one saying Twitter should have "low expectations" of getting an offer from the tech giant.

That should tamp down the frenzied speculation around a possible Twitter sale since Salesforce began no-commenting noisily with regard to possible interest in acquiring it a few weeks ago.

The news set in motion a series of ever more breathless reports of bankers being hired and a bidding process being started. Much of this is due to said bankers trying to gin up excitement around a sale of Twitter, creating as much interest as possible to spike up the price. After all, it can't be just Salesforce's Marc Benioff running around flashing wads of cash!

(By the way, a lack of a Twitter bid by Google or Apple probably raises the likelihood that you are never going to see one from Facebook either.)