Twitter recorded a very heavy loss of $ 537 million in the third quarter, linked to an amicable settlement with aggrieved shareholders, but saw an increase in its advertising revenue when other players in the sector have suffered.
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The social network had announced, at the end of September, the payment of 809.5 million dollars to settle a dispute which concerned the communication of the company in early 2015, deemed misleading by several shareholders, at the origin of a legal action . Several months had passed before Twitter delivered a picture more consistent with its real activity. In the meantime, executives of the group had sold for $ 281 million of Twitter shares, at prices that did not reflect, according to shareholders, the situation of the group. The deal resulted in a one-off charge of $ 766 million included in this quarter's accounts, which plunged earnings into the red, with an adjusted loss of 54 cents per share, when the market expected a profit of 17 cents.
However, despite this air gap, investors have welcomed these results, the title taking 2.95% in electronic exchanges after the close of Wall Street.
The group with the blue bird has indeed recorded a turnover in line with expectations, at 1.28 billion dollars, with advertising revenues up 41% over one year and even 8.5% of a quarter over another.
Decrease in revenue for Facebook
Twitter is doing well this quarter when other social networks, primarily Facebook, suffered from the effects of an update to the iPhone operating system. Version 14.5 of iOS now asks the user whether or not they want to allow an application downloaded on the iPhone to follow its online journey outside the app. If he refuses, the app can no longer collect data when the user goes to other sites and apps, which has been the case until now. As a result of these changes, many of the tools previously used by advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their social media advertising campaigns are no longer effective.
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Hit hard by this headwind, Facebook recorded a 1% drop in advertising revenue in the third quarter, while it was up 56% year-on-year between the second quarter of 2020 and the same period. from 2021.