Twitter Reports Huge Loss

Twitter's first earnings report as a public company provided figures that at first glance may look a little worrying, but it's not all gloom and doom as far as the social media and mini blogging site is concerned. The massive net loss of $511 Million for Q4 is a whole lot more than the loss that was posted for the same period in 2012 which stood at $8.71 Million, and Twitter stated that this rather significant shift was due to, "$521 million of stock-based compensation expense, of which $406 million was for restricted stock units previously granted to employees".

During 2013 the total loss for Twitter stands at $645 Million, however revenue during the year was up to $664 due to an increase in users over the whole year, with monthly active users up 30% when looking at year on year figures. There's more good news in that revenue is up and $243 Million was generated in Q4 which is up 116% over the same period last year, beating analysts predictions and leading Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to say that, "Twitter finished a great year with our strongest financial quarter to date", however investors and shareholders reacted differently and share price dropped swiftly by over 17% on the back of the numbers provided. Questions will now be asked as to whether or not Twitter can now maintain its growth and even worse, whether it will actually turn a profit at all.