Twilio delivers surprise adjusted profit as revenue growth accelerates, stock up 10%

Twilio shares rose more than 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after the cloud communications company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, including a surprise adjusted profit.

Here’s how the company did:

• Earnings: 4 cents per share, adjusted, vs. loss of 8 cents per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
• Revenue: $548.1 million, vs. $454.8 million as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

Revenue grew 65% on an annualized basis in the quarter, according to a statement, compared with 52% growth in the prior quarter.

Twilio added 13,000 active customer accounts in the fourth quarter, bringing the total to 221,000, compared with an increase of 8,000 in the third quarter. The company provides tools developers can use to add text messaging, voice and video calls, emails and other functions into applications. Twilio also offers cloud-based contact center software that companies can rely on for their agents’ interactions with customers.

“The pandemic accelerated change overnight,” Jeff Lawson, a co-founder of Twilio and its CEO, said on a conference call with analysts. “Health care had to accelerate the adoption of telemedicine and e-commerce companies accelerated their e-commerce plans. Companies that hired more developers and upped their digital game during the pandemic are not going back.”

Political activity contributed $23 million in revenue in the quarter, while Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app contributed 5% of revenue, down from 6% in the third quarter, said Khozema Shipchandler, the company’s finance chief.

With respect to guidance, Twilio sees an adjusted loss of 12 cents to 9 cents per share on $526 million to $536 million in revenue in the first quarter, implying about 44% to 47% revenue growth. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected an adjusted loss of 2 cents per share on $492.1 million in revenue.

Notwithstanding the after-hours move, Twilio shares have risen about 22% since the start of the year, compared with an increase of less than 5% for the S&P 500 index over the same period.

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