Twitter’s Redemption Earnings Not Enough

By: AnyOption

Someone in Twitter’s front office is sitting back and watching the company’s stock go up and down, thinking, “Make up your damn mind, Wall Street!” 2015 has already been a wild ride for the social media company. Shares spiked 28.2% in February on the news that the company had a breakout in terms of solving revenue concerns. The stock rode fairly high until April’s earnings report, which once again highlighted the company’s user growth problems. It plummeted 25.5% in a matter of two days. It didn’t help that longtime CEO Dick Costolo resigned midway through the year without any specific plans for the company’s management, giving investors reason to wonder about the future.

Mixed results, investors throw out the good
All eyes were on interim CEO Jack Dorsey on Tuesday, as the company reported its Q2 2015 results. Shares were up 5.3% as investors anticipated some good news. And as the report hit the newswire, that’s exactly what they got:

• Earnings per share of $0.07, beating estimates by $0.03 (is that really a profit I see? That’s a big deal for Twitter).
• Revenue of $502.4 million, a 60.9% increase year over year, beating the consensus by $21.12 million.
• Strong guidance for Q3 and full year revenue.

Shares were initially up 6% after hours on the idea that Twitter might finally be redeeming itself. But just like every other quarter where the social media company shows signs of life, user growth takes center stage with some tough words from CFO Anthony Noto.

During the company’s earnings call, Noto told investors not to expect too much in terms of user growth. "We do not expect to see sustained meaningful growth in MAU until we start to reach the mass market,” he said. “We expect that will take a considerable amount of time."

"Simply put, the product remains too difficult to use,” Noto said. Product execution has been all over the place, the service is complicated and people really don’t see the value of it.

Asked how the monthly active user (MAU) trends look for the upcoming quarter, he responded that it will be “very low as it was this quarter.” How low is he talking? Twitter’s MAUs were up to 316 million users from 308 million last quarter — a 2.6% increase. But Twitter is now including SMS followers in its MAU count. If you take SMS away, you have 304 million MAUs compared to 302 million last quarter — a measly 0.66% increase.

Yeah, that’s a problem. The result? As of this writing the day after the report, Twitter is down 13%, and it likely still has room to drop. The fallout also includes two more executives leaving the company: Todd Jackson, former director of product management, and Christian Oestline, former vice president of product management. The question is, were they jumping from a sinking ship? Or were they told to walk the plank?

Turnaround in tech?

When you think about big turnarounds in the private sector, your thoughts turn to McDonald’s, Tesco or AIG. But have you ever seen a turnaround in the tech space? At least Dorsey is willing to put the problems out there. Here are just a few things he’s said about why the company is failing:

• The company’s efforts to attract new users “have not yet made a meaningful impact.”
• Using the platform should “be as looking out your window to see what’s happening.”
• It “has to be the most powerful microphone in the world.”

Don’t get me wrong, the potential is there. I’ve always felt that way about Twitter. But Dick Costolo’s confusing vision has always stood in the way of that potential. And it may be too late. When you think about other tech companies trying to reinvent themselves, you only see failed attempts — MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Yahoo and AOL are just a few examples. The fact that Dorsey mentioned that Twitter has no immediate plans to monetize Periscope, its best chance at staying abreast of the competition, doesn’t bode well for the company’s relationship with its shareholders.

Another problem is that almost everyone has heard of Twitter — Noto says the company has 95% “unaided brand recall” — but only a small portion use it. Compare that with Facebook, which has 1.44 billion MAUs and Instagram and WhatsApp, which are both closing in on 1 billion MAUs, and Twitter’s 316 million shows that its problems may be too big to handle.

The best solution

There’s no denying that Twitter has immense value in popular culture. But a standalone turnaround likely won’t cut it. The best solution for Twitter to reach its potential is an acquisition. Google has already been mentioned in rumors, or at least speculation, in acquiring Twitter. Since Google Plus has been a massive failure, it only makes sense for Google to buy an existing semi-successful platform and make it better than to try it again from scratch.

Will it happen? Twitter shareholders can only hope.

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