Twitter reports Q2 revenue down 1% YoY to $1.18B, vs. 1.32B est., a $270M net loss, down from $66M in net income a year ago, and 237.8M mDAUs, up 16.6% YoY

- Twitter reported earnings for the second quarter on Friday that missed analyst estimates on earnings, revenue and user growth.

CNBC 2022-07-23 Annie Palmer

Context & Ripple Effects

Twitter entered the quarter after Q4 revenue growth of 22% and rising mDAUs, but its latest results break that momentum: the company missed expectations as revenue declined and profitability turned negative. The pattern also echoes Twitter's 2020 quarter, when user growth did not prevent a sharp revenue decline.

First-order effects

Twitter reports a $270 million net loss after a profitable year-ago quarter, while its $1.18 billion in revenue falls short of estimates despite 16.6% mDAU growth.
The results make Twitter's near-term challenge explicit: a larger monetizable audience is not currently producing commensurate revenue growth.

Second-order effects

Twitter faces greater pressure to improve the yield from its active audience, rather than relying on mDAU expansion alone, as the revenue miss follows its prior quarter's growth.
The earnings reversal reinforces revenue per active device as the key operating tension for Twitter: audience growth and advertising-led financial performance can diverge.

Third-order effects

Across Twitter's earnings history, recurring misses alongside varying audience growth point to a structurally volatile advertising business in which scale is not a reliable proxy for monetization.
If that pattern persists, investor assessment of Twitter will shift further from user-growth milestones toward the durability of revenue generated from each active user.

The trend: Social platforms are being judged increasingly on whether active-user growth converts into durable advertising revenue, not on audience expansion alone.

Discussion

@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
Twitter users are up +16% yet revenue is down -1% year over year. That is shocking. This is worse than Snapchat's earnings where the combination of the economy and Apple ATT hurt worse than expected. I'd have expected some revenue growth given that much user growth. This is bad.
@tculpan Tim Culpan on x
3/ Twitter sells access to its API, which provides a two-way connection to its platform. That's bots. Automated accounts: advertisers, media outlets, corporations, even NGOs all use the API to post to Twitter or read data from Twitter. And revenue from that business is rising
@stokel Chris Stokel-Walker on x
Twitter has already ploughed $33 million into costs around handling the botched Elon Musk deal, according to its Q2 results announced today
@mattnavarra Matt Navarra on x
Twitter spent $33m in three months on Elon Musk deal https://www.bbc.com/...
@alistairmbarr Alistair Barr on x
Twitter's EBITDA margin was 9% this past quarter vs. expectations of 22%. Lots of new expenses, like having Wachtell write a fancy Delaware case for you
@davepell Dave Pell on x
Twitter needs leadership that doesn't think someone else can run the company better than they can. https://www.cnbc.com/...
@aparanjape Amit Paranjape on x
Twitter Reports Surprising Drop in Revenue Amid Elon Musk Fight Social-media company blames dip on advertising weakness and uncertainty related to its pending $44 billion takeover deal https://www.wsj.com/...
@newley Newley Purnell on x
Twitter cited “advertising industry headwinds associated with the macroenvironment as well as uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter.” Won't host an earnings conference call because of the pending transaction. https://www.wsj.com/...
@ryan_browne_ Ryan Browne on x
Twitter earnings are out. They show the company's user base is growing, but revenues aren't. Twitter apportions some of the blame to “uncertainty” surrounding the Musk deal. $TWTR down 2% in premarket. https://www.cnbc.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
Twitter earnings are out and they missed on every number • Revenue: $1.18B vs $1.32B expected • mDAU: 237.8M vs 238.08M expected • lost -$344M vs +$30M profit last year Twitter blamed the economy and uncertainty created by Elon Musk on missed numbers. https://www.cnbc.com/...
@tculpan Tim Culpan on x
2/ Twitter 2Q ad revenue was +6% (constant currency) But Subs & other +7%. It sold ad-tech unit MoPub last year, which caused -27% in that division. But without MoPub, that “other” category is primarily driven by Dev subs, which is access to its API. What's this API stuff?
@davidmarcus David Marcus on x
Irrespective of whether you believe in Elon's motivations to back out of the Twitter deal, it's striking how many obviously fake/bot accounts there are on the platform. Better AI/ML models would catch these easily (duplicate names, profile pics, RT/like patterns...). Basic shit.
@aslavitt @aslavitt on x
Elon Musk taunts Twitter only to try to back away without a plan when he realizes he's over his head.
@teroterotero Tero Kuittinen on x
Just fascinating... Snap down -39%, Twitter up 0.7%. Twitter now trading purely on legal expectations
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
Snap grew DAU by +18% year over year and revenue by +13%. Twitter grew mDAU by +16% year over year but revenue is down -1%. This doesn't help the narrative that something is wonky with Twitter's mDAU numbers. Best case scenario is their ads business sucks worse than believed.
@arainert Alex Rainert on x
Really hope Twitter makes it through all this but with TikTok, FB & IG all going all in entertainment platforms can someone please build the 2022 Path to keep up with a reasonable amount of people in a privacy-friendly way? https://twitter.com/...
@pierce David Pierce on x
Facebook and Instagram are becoming entertainment platforms. This Musk thing will kill Twitter one way or another. Is 2022 going to be the end of “social networking” as a thing? Except LinkedIn, of course. LinkedIn will somehow outlive us all https://twitter.com/...

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