Twitter Shares Tumble After Q1 Results

Shares of Twitter Inc TWTR tumbled more than 18 percent in regular trading hours on the company's downbeat Q1 sales and weak forecast. Financial data platform Selerity tweeted earlier what seemed to be leaked Q1 earnings. Consequently, the stock started sliding even before the company officially declared the results The San Francisco, California-based company reported a quarterly net loss of $162.4 million, or $0.25 per share, versus a year-ago loss of $132.4 million, or $0.23 per share. Its adjusted earnings came in at $0.07 per share. Its sales climbed 74 percent to $435.9 million. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.04 per share on revenue of $456.8 million. Advertising revenue climbed 72 percent to $388 million in the latest quarter. International revenue jumped 109 percent to $147 million. Data licensing and other revenue surged 95 percent to $48 million in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA climbed 182 percent year-over-year to $104 million in the first quarter. Average Monthly Active Users climbed 18 percent year-over-year to 302 million for the first quarter. As of March 31, 2015, the company had $3.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, versus $3.6 billion as of December 31, 2014. The average estimate among 138 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.07 per share and revenue of $463.62 million. "While we exceeded our EBITDA target for the first quarter, revenue growth fell slightly short of our expectations due to lower-than-expected contribution from some of our newer direct response products," said Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter. "It is still early days for these products, and we have a strong pipeline that we believe will drive increased value for direct response advertisers in the future. We remain confident in our strategy and in Twitter's long-term opportunity, and our focus remains on creating sustainable shareholder value by executing against our three priorities: strengthening the core, reducing barriers to consumption and delivering new apps and services." For the second quarter, Twitter now projects revenue of $470 to $485 million, versus analysts' estimates of $538 million. The company also lowered its FY15 revenue forecast to $2.17 billion to $2.27 billion, versus earlier outlook of $2.3 billion to $2.35 billion. Analysts had expected revenue of $2.374 billion. Twitter also announced its plans to acquire TellApart, Inc. Twitter shares fell 1.11 percent to $41.80 in the after-hours trading session.