Twitter's First Post-IPO Earnings: What to Expect

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Twitter goes public at the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 7, 2013.

Image: Mashable/Christina Ascani

By Seth Fiegerman2014-02-05 14:45:06 UTC

Twitter will release its first earnings report on Wednesday since going public in early November. As with the rest of the IPO process, chances are Twitter's team hopes to do the opposite of Facebook.

The day after Facebook's first earnings report as a public company, Facebook's stock hit a new all-time low. The concern at the time was whether Facebook had the potential to monetize on mobile.

See also: This Is Why No One Follows You on Twitter

For Twitter, mobile growth and monetization aren't really a concern. What analysts are particularly focused on is overall growth in the number of monthly active users and engagement trends on the social network.

Shortly before Twitter went public, the company updated its S-1 filing with the SEC with new numbers through the end of the June quarter. That update effectively served as Twitter's first-ever quarterly earnings report. The data showed a slight decrease in engagement on Twitter — as measured by timeline views per monthly active user — and slowing user growth worldwide, both on a quarterly and annual basis.

Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee, expects Twitter's monthly active user number to climb to 244 million in the December quarter, up from 232 million at the end of the previous quarter. On the engagement side, Bhatia expects timeline views to increase 6% quarter-over-quarter.

Twitter's monthly active user growth slowed in the June quarter.

Twitter is not yet profitable, and analysts are not expecting that to change anytime soon. The consensus estimate on Wall Street is that Twitter will report a loss of $0.02 per share. The key figure is revenue, which is expected to hit $217.82 million for the quarter, nearly doubling from the same quarter a year earlier.

The company's stock has been on a wild ride since going public three months ago, more than doubling from IPOs price, thanks to the rollout of new ad targeting products and growing optimism for the social media space. That could be problematic, however, as Twitter reports earnings.

"We think investors have high expectations from the quarter," Bhatia wrote in the investor note. "With only 27% Buy ratings on the sell side and the average target price of $50, we think investors expect a substantial beat."

Twitter's stock has skyrocketed since its IPO three months ago.

Fittingly, Twitter will be accepting questions from users on Twitter during the earnings call, if there's anything you'd like to ask the company:

Topics: Business, stocks, Twitter, twitter ipo