Twitter's Advertising Revenue Slightly Declined in Q4 2016

Twitter released its fourth-quarter earnings results on Thursday morning.

Despite user growth of 4%, Twitter’s advertising revenue shrank year over year to $638 million and the company recorded another net loss of $167.1 million.

According to the company’s Q4 2016 earnings report,

  • Q4 2016 revenue totaled $717 million, an increase of 1% year-over-year and its ad revenue declined year-over-year to $638 million.
  • Mobile advertising revenue was 89% of total advertising revenue.
  • Data licensing and other revenue totaled $79 million, an increase of 14% year-over-year.
  • Twitter’s stock fell 10 percent following the announcement of the disappointing earnings.
  • Video is the single largest revenue-generating ad format including live-streaming, Twitter Amplify, and First View ad formats.

“2016 was a transformative year as we reset and focused on why people use Twitter: it’s the fastest way to see what’s happening and what everyone’s talking about,” Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, said in a statement.

The total picture looks better when you look at the whole year. Twitter said revenues grew 14 percent for the year to $2.5 billion. Still, it reported a loss for the year of $457 million. And, it remains financially sound as the company generated $444 million in cash in 2016, up from just $5 million in 2015. At the end of 2016, Twitter had $3.8 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities on hand.