Twitter Shares Jump After Apple’s Privacy Changes Have Minimal Impact On Quarterly Earnings - Forbes

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Shares of Twitter rose after the social media company reported solid third-quarter earnings—with revenue and user growth meeting analysts’ expectations, showing that Apple’s iPhone privacy changes had less of an impact on its business than expected.

Key Facts

Twitter announced third-quarter revenue of $1.28 billion, an increase of 37% from a year ago, while daily active users grew by 5 million to a total of 211 million.

The company reported a loss of 54 cents per share, which was greater than expected, but mainly due to a one-time settlement paid out in September to resolve a shareholder lawsuit.

Shares of Twitter, which lost over 1% during trading on Tuesday, rose nearly 4% after the earnings release.Many investors had been closely watching to what degree Apple’s recent iPhone privacy changes would impact Twitter’s earnings, after mixed results from Facebook on Monday and Snap last week.

Despite Apple’s new policy disrupting the ad business of both those companies, Twitter said in its earnings release that the impact of the iOS privacy changes were minimal, with the company’s quarterly ad revenue rising more than 41% from a year ago to $1.14 billion.

Going into the fourth quarter, the company still only expects a modest impact to overall revenues from Apple’s recent iOS changes.

Key Background:

Apple’s privacy changes for the iPhone iOS 14.5 update were rolled out during the third quarter and introduced a new feature called App Tracking Transparency, which reduces the effectiveness and profitability of targeted advertising. Snap, which is almost entirely on mobile, admitted in its earnings report last Thursday that Apple’s privacy changes during the third quarter impacted advertising sales more than anticipated: Investors panicked and shares of Snap plunged over 25% immediately following earnings. Facebook, which reported earnings on Monday, also missed revenue estimates as CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned of “continued headwinds from Apple’s iOS 14 changes,” with shares falling nearly 4% on Tuesday.