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Shares of Twitter Inc. were gaining in premarket trading Thursday after the social-media company largely met expectations with its latest financial results and announced a new $4 billion buyback program.
The company reported fourth-quarter net income of $182 million, or 21 cents a share, down from $222 million, or 27 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. After adjusting for stock-based compensation and other expenses, Twitter
TWTR,
earned 33 cents a share, down from 38 cents a share a year prior and in line with the FactSet consensus.
Twitter’s revenue increased to $1.57 billion from $1.29 billion, while analysts had been modeling $1.58 billion.
The company had 217 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) in the fourth quarter, up from 211 million in the third quarter. Analysts tracked by FactSet were expecting the company to add 8 million mDAUs in the period.
Twitter had 38 million U.S. mDAUs on average and 179 million international mDAUs on average in the fourth quarter.
The company further announced a new $4 billion share-buyback program. Twitter said that, in conjunction with the new program, it plans to enter into a $2 billion accelerated share repurchase and buy back the remaining $2 billion in shares over time.
“We will continuously evaluate efficient alternatives to using cash on hand to fund the program, including accessing the capital markets, subject to market conditions,” Twitter said in its earnings release.
This new program will replace the prior $2 billion program that was approved in 2020 and had about $819 million remaining.
Twitter shares were up more than 7% in premarket trading Thursday.
For the first quarter, Twitter expects total revenue of $1.17 billion to $1.27 billion, while analysts were anticipating $1.26 billion. The company also projects a GAAP operating loss of $175 million to $225 million for the period. The FactSet consensus was for a $23 million operating loss.
Looking at the full year, Twitter expects stock-based compensation expense of $900 million to $925. It also anticipates seeing $900 million to $950 million in capital expenditures.
Twitter’s stock has tumbled 27.7% over the past three months through Wednesday, while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
has slipped 1.3%.
