Twitter admits revenue and income to go down in Q1 2020

San Francisco, March 24 (IANS) Twitter has said the current pandemic is set to hit financial performance in the first quarter of 2020 and the company has withdrawn its revenue and operating income guidance as well as its outlook for expenses.

The company expects Q1 revenue to be “down slightly” on a year-over-year basis. It had earlier provided Q1 guidance of revenue between $825 million and $885 million.

The micro-blogging platform, however, reported a gain of 12 million daily users as more people joined the platform during the COVID-19 crisis.

“Global conversation about COVID-19 as well as ongoing product improvements are driving strength in total monetizable DAU (mDAU), with quarter-to-date average total mDAU reaching approximately 164 million, up 23 per cent from 134 million in Q1 2019 and up 8 per cent from 152 million in Q4 2019,” Twitter said in a statement.

In the current quarter, “We’re seeing a meaningful increase in people using Twitter, and our teams are demonstrating incredible resilience adapting to this unprecedented environment,” said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

“We’ll continue to navigate this environment focusing on supporting our employees, customers, and partners, while strengthening our service for everyone around the world and adjusting to a new operating and economic environment”.

The company will provide an update on its Q1 2020 earnings call on April 30.

“Twitter had a strong start to the year before the effects of COVID-19 began spreading more broadly. The COVID-19 impact began in Asia, and as it unfolded into a global pandemic, it has impacted Twitter’s advertising revenue globally more significantly in the last few weeks,” said Ned Segal, Twitter’s Chief Financial Officer.

–IANS

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