Twitter reports $1.29 billion Q4 2020 revenue

In its latest earnings report, Twitter revealed that in Q4 2020, it made a record quarterly revenue of $1.29 billion (€1.06 billion), up 28 per cent on the same quarter in 2019. 

In the report, released Wednesday night, Twitter’s CFO, Ned Segal said the company’s increased revenue reflects “better-than-expected performance across all [its] major products and geographies”.

The quarter’s revenue brought the platform’s annual revenue to $3.72 billion (€3.07 billion).

Twitter also announced a 27 per cent year-on-year increase in its active daily users in Q4, to reach a daily average of 192 million monetizable active daily users.

Despite the promising increases in usership and revenue, the company continued to record a distinct net annual loss, of $1.14 billion (€940 million). 

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that 2020 was an extraordinary year for the social network and that the company is “more proud than ever to serve the public conversation”.

The company also revealed that in Q4 2020, its ad-revenue ballooned 31 per cent year on year, to reach $1.15 billion (€950 million).

The earnings report was Twitter’s first since the platform banned Donald Trump in January after the attack on Capitol Hill.

It said that despite the former President’s controversial ban, it expected monetizable daily active users on the platform to rise 20 per cent year-on-year in Q1 2021, emphasising that Twitter “is obviously much larger than any one topic or any one account”.

As it enters 2021, the company says its “objectives are similar to previous years and its success will best be measured by our ability to grow our audience and deliver financial results in line with [its] guidance”.

It will also embark on a hiring spree, it said, to grow employee headcount “by more than 20 per cent in 2021”.

The report appears to have renewed investor confidence, as stock prices bounce 13 per cent in its wake.