Twitter said its Q2 revenue slide was linked to “advertising industry headwinds … as well as uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk.”
Updated at 8:33 am EST
Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter Inc. Report posted a surprise second quarter loss Friday as the social media group navigated a slowdown in global ad spending and the uncertainly linked to Elon Musk’s disputed $44 billion takeover.
Twitter said its non-GAAP loss for the three months ending in June was pegged at 8 cents per share, down from a profit of 20 cents per share over the same period last year and firmly south of the Street consensus forecast of 14 cents per share profit.
Group revenues fell 1% to $1.14 billion, again coming in shy of the Street forecast of a $1.315 billion tally, which Twitter said was “reflecting advertising industry headwinds associated with the macroenvironment as well as uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk”. Ad revenues, Twitter said, rose 2% to $1.08 billion
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Twitter made no other direct comment on Elon Musk’s proposed $44 billion takeover, which the Tesla (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc. Report CEO is seeking to avoid, but noted that the company “believes that Mr. Musk’s purported termination is invalid and wrongful, and the merger agreement remains in effect.” The pair will face-off in Delaware Chancery Court in October.
Twitter said average monetizable daily active users, its term for the number of daily users who can view ads, rose 3.8% from the March quarter to 237.8 million, just shy of the Street forecast of 238.7 million.
Twitter shares were marked 2.54% lower in pre-market trading immediately following the earnings release to indicate an opening bell price of $38.57 each.
Social media stocks were already weakened by the ad-spend warning from Snap Inc (SNAP) – Get Snap Inc. Class A Report, which posted its slowest revenue growth on record, while declining to offer near-term profit guidance, following a narrower-than-expected second quarter loss.
