Why do people buy stocks in these companies that loose that much money each year. I wish I could find some fool to buy my publishing company at that multiple, and I make a profit unlike Twitter.

I think ill try to sell my website on flippa and use the multiple they use when they placed a value on Twitter's IPO.

Then I will use my reasoning to justify why im asking so much for a internet based business.

Just my two sense........

"Twitter finished a great year with our strongest financial quarter to date," said Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter.

Losses for the quarter increased to more than half a billion dollars? What sort of accounting standards is he using?

Growth is also tailing off. Another 'CB Radio' methinks.

Twitter is in fact profitable.

The value of "stock based compesation" (options or equity payments) wipes this out.

Under both IFRS and US GAAP the full value of these must be deducted from profits, even though there is no actual cash spent.

If you look at other profit measures, Twitter is not too bad. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 18% is pretty good.

The most striking things for me are:

1) The drop in timeline views
2) the rise in revenues

A $1.49 CPM is also good for a site that size.

Twitter user growth is a challenge, as it is with any such service. Has it reached its plateau? I can't be sure, but by blocking spammers it's probably slowed apparent growth considerably.

I'd also add, the trend is going in the correct direction, and the company has not long been selling advertising.

It seems Wall Street is as divided over the results as we have in this thread.

Twitter Inc's shares fell almost 25 percent on Thursday, wiping out about $9.8 billion in market value, after the company reported a sharp slowdown in user growth.

The stock, which debuted at $26 in November, hit a low of $50 in early trading. The shares hit a peak of $74.73 in late December as investors bet that the social media platform could become as ubiquitous as Facebook.

Analysts, unlike investors, were divided on the company's outlook a day after it reported fourth-quarter results.

Twitter, according to broker assessments, is either the overvalued owner of a niche product whose potential is fading or an undervalued phenomenon that is set to give Facebook a run for its money in mobile.

"We remain firmly in the latter camp..." said Deutsche Bank, one of one at least six brokerages that raised target prices or ratings on Twitter's stock.Investors dump Twitter stock as results divide Wall Street [reuters.com]

Blows my mind when I see a company with such revenues posting a LOSS and all they do is shove a bunch of 140 character messages around the planet.

Something is horribly wrong with that corporate infrastructure as I'm sure I could make a pile of profit from that kind of cash flow but maybe I'm wrong.

It just looks wrong to me, very wrong.

Someone at Twitter needs to get their checkbook and credit cards taken away from them.

Twitter finished a great year with our strongest financial quarter to date.

Call me old fashion, but I judge success by how much profit a company makes.

Blows my mind when I see a company with such revenues posting a LOSS and all they do is shove a bunch of 140 character messages around the planet.

1) Under the accounting standards of a few year ago they would have made a profit.
2) They have made a profit, and have a high margin, if you look at some measures of profit.

The problem here is that the numbers are being reported by journalists who do not understand the numbers to a public that does not understand the numbers.

Lets try another explanation: Twitter made a small profit, but it was turned into a large loss after deducting the value of shares and/or options issued as remuneration

Lets try another explanation: Twitter made a small profit, but it was turned into a large loss after deducting the value of shares and/or options issued as remuneration

Ah ha, also known as Hollywood accounting.

I should've know.

Egg. Face. Meet.

I didn't dig too deep into the actual financials and took the statement at face value, the same face now sporting a shiny egg coating. Sometimes I wrongly assume the topic is based on actual valid research into the subject and not just over hyped link bait. This lapse of judgement happens due to time constraints as there's obviously not enough time to fact check everything and I prefer to waste my fact checking time on something more important or personally interesting.

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm still sure they're wasting money by the bucketful but it's not my bucket.

ho ho ho :) that is quite a number :)

I've been always curious on their server maintenance/running costs :)

.. have to google up their server room :)

Even though a 4% increase in user base seems small, it's still millions of new users coming in. I'd say twitter could be a really interesting stock - saw one institution putting a $75 target on it.

However, I agree, they don't seem to be making the money they should in relation to a rather high quote. Interesting year for sure.