UPDATED 20:06 EDT / OCTOBER 26 2021

APPS

Twitter shares rise on lower-than-expected impact of Apple’s privacy changes

Shares in Twitter Inc. rose in after-hours trading today after the microblogging platform said that it had not been affected as much as expected by privacy changes Apple Inc. has made in iOS 14.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Twitter reported a profit of 18 cents a share. Revenue rose 37% from a year ago, to $1.284 billion. Analysts had been predicting an 15-cent profit on revenue of $1.285 billion.

The figures were not all positive, with Twitter taking a onetime litigation-related net charge of $766 million, meaning that its net operating loss in the quarter was $537 million compared with a profit $29 million in the same quarter last year.

Monetizable daily active users, Twitter’s key engagement metric, came in at 211 million in the quarter, up from 187 million in the same quarter of 2020 and from 206 million in the previous quarter. Analysts had been expecting a little more at 211.9 million.

“Our focus is paying off and we are pleased with our performance in the third quarter, with revenue up 37% year-over-year, reflecting strength across all major products and geographies,” Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal said in a statement. “We continued to drive increased value for our advertisers thanks to revenue product innovation, including progress on our brand and direct response offerings, strong sales execution, and a broad increase in advertiser demand.”

Twitter’s earnings report came just under a week since Snap Inc. reported weaker-than-expected figures from the ad tracking changes in iOS. While warning that those changes make future results uncertain, Twitter avoided the worst of it.

“It is still too early for Twitter to assess the long-term impact of Apple’s privacy-related iOS changes, but the Q3 revenue impact was lower than expected, and we have incorporated an ongoing modest impact into our Q4 guidance,” the company wrote in a letter to shareholders. Twitter noted that it had put mitigations into place before the change and had adopted new standards to deal with it.

Looking forward, Twitter said that it expects revenue to grow faster than expenses in 2021, excluding the one litigation settlement paid out in the third quarter. The company did note that it expects a mid-20% increase in total expenses next year from hiring more people and making additional investments.

For the fourth quarter, Twitter said, it expects revenue of $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion on net operating income of $130 million to $180 million.

Although Twitter came in slightly under forecasts on revenue, the news that the company had seemingly handled the iOS changes was well-received by investors. Twitter shares rose more than 3% in after-hours trading.

Photo: Unsplash

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