Twitter has released its financials for the fourth quarter of 2019. It reported total revenue to be $1.01 billion in Q4 which was in the high-end region of its guidance range. It said this is the first time that it has delivered $1 billion in quarterly revenues. It said the United States made up $591 million of the revenue, an increase of 17% compared to the year before; this was driven by a 20% growth in U.S. advertising revenue.
Commenting on the results, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, said:
“2019 was a great year for Twitter. Our work to increase relevance and ease of use delivered 21% mDAU [(monetizable Daily Active Usage)] growth in Q4, with more than half of the 26 million mDAU added in 2019 directly driven by product improvements. Entering 2020, we are building on our momentum – learning faster, prioritizing better, shipping more and hiring remarkable talent. All of which put us in a stronger position as we address the challenges and opportunities ahead.”
With the fourth-quarter results in, Twitter was able to reveal that the firm’s revenue for the whole year was $3.46 billion which represents a 14% increase year-over-year. While it may seem like a lot, costs and expenses still need factoring in. The yearly costs and expenses totalled $3.09 billion (+19% year-over-year) which left an operating income of $366 million and an 11% operating margin.
This year, the company said that it has four main objectives to drive its work, these are:
- Increasing development velocity and trust
- Increasing healthy public conversation
- Increasing revenue durability
- Enabling anyone, anywhere to work at Twitter
To achieve these goals, the firm wants to increase its workforce by 20% or more this year, especially in engineering, product, design, and research roles. This growth, and previous investment decisions, will see costs and expenses grow by 20% in 2020. One such investment will see it build a new data centre this year which will add capacity “to support audience and revenue growth”. On the back of these financials, Twitter's share price rose from the $33 range to around $39.
