Twitter's Q3 Performance Highlights

Twitter recently released their 2019 Q3 performance report. The numbers they report seem good overall, but there are a few concerns. Here are our highlights: 

• Overall, Twitter is adding more users. The average Monetizeable Daily Active Users (mDAU) increased 17% year-over-year, reaching 145 million in Q3. mDAU is a more accurate measurement of the actual platform’s performance because it only accounts for users Twitter can show ads to, rather than overall user count. 

• Twitter’s total revenue for Q3 was $824 million, compared to 2018 Q3’s $758 million. By itself, an increase of 9% looks good. But it’s important to note that revenue growth drastically slowed down in Q3 below market expectations, causing their stock to drop as a result. 

• Twitter claims the main reason for the slowed revenue growth  is due to the issues they discovered with their Mobile Application Promotion (MAP). The MAP targeting system was using personal information provided by users for account security purposes to match them with relevant ads. After discovering the issue in August, Twitter stopped using the system and issued an apology, but has yet to find a replacement system yet. The lag in revenue will most likely still be reflected in Q4 as they try to implement a new system. Overall, this issue means that Twitter can correct it long term, but short term revenue will slow down. 

• The total advertising revenue was $702 million, an increase of 8%. Video ad formats showed the most strength, especially Video Website Card and In-Stream Video Ads. 

• Ad engagements increased 23%, primarily a result of increased ad impressions due to audience growth and improved clickthrough rates.