Impact of COVID-19... Twitter Lowers Quarterly Earnings Forecast

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] Twitter has also lowered its first-quarter earnings guidance due to the impact of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

According to economic media CNBC and others, Ned Segal, Twitter's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), stated on the 23rd (local time) that as COVID-19 spread into a pandemic, "it has significantly affected our advertising revenue over the past few weeks."

Twitter's first-quarter revenue is expected to fall far short of the initially forecasted $825 million to $885 million. In a statement released that day, Twitter confirmed, "First-quarter revenue will decline compared to the same period last year," and "a GAAP operating loss is expected."

Following this news, Twitter's stock price fell more than 2% in after-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

However, as the spread of COVID-19 has led more people to seek new information through social networking services (SNS), the number of active users, one of the key indicators, is also on the rise. Twitter's first-quarter daily active users (DAU) reached 164 million, an increase of 23% year-over-year and 8% quarter-over-quarter.