Twitter Inc(NYSE: TWTR) stock surged on 17% on solid fourth quarter of 2017 performance (As of 11:29AM EST on Feb 8th, 2018; Source: Google finance).
For the fourth quarter of 2017, the Daily active usage (DAU) surged 12% on a year-over-year basis which is their fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth. Their Average monthly active usage (MAU) rose 4% yoy to 330 million. But the seasonality and the change to Safari’s third-party app integration, had hurt over 2 million MAU during the quarter. Average US MAUs rose 3% yoy to 68 million during the quarter hurt by the change to Safari’s third-party app integration, as well as seasonality and rising information quality efforts. The Average international MAUs surged 4% yoy to 262 million.
The Advertising revenue rose 1% yoy to $644 million, while O&O advertising revenue rose 7% yoy to $593 million. Data licensing and other revenue rose 10% yoy to $87 million. US revenue lost 8% yoy to $406 million, but International revenue fell 17% yoy to $326 million. The Total ad engagements surged 75% tot while Cost per engagement (CPE) fell 42% on a year-over-year basis. Ongoing engagement growth, better ROI and sales execution continued to drive the growth. The group witnessed an ongoing strength in data and enterprise solutions (DES) during fourth quarter. The group also launched a premium APIs, a new product line that offers developers with a better access to Twitter data and a more flexible way to build and scale their businesses.
Twitter also delivered a GAAP profi tability for the first time which is a major milestone. GAAP net income was $91 million with adjusted EBITDA of $308 million. GAAP net margins in Q4 reached 12% and adjusted EBITDA margins was 42%, on track with the long-term target range of 40-45% for the first time.
However, the Total revenue fell 3% yoy to $2.4 billion, during the 2017 year. But GAAP net loss narrowed to $108 million or (4)% net margin, against $457 million or (18)% net margin in 2016. Moreover, Net cash from operating activities rose 9% yoy to $831 million, while generated $550 million of adjusted free cash flow in 2017 against $444 million in 2016. The group has $4.4 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities.