Twitter sees fewer users than expected and stock sinks

Twitter Inc. on Thursday reported increased quarterly revenue on the strength of ad sales, but its user numbers fell short of expectations.

The San Francisco-based company said its average monetizable daily active users increased 20% year over year to 199 million, but analysts had expected that number to grow to 200 million.

Twitter shares fell as much as 8.5% after hours, after a 0.9% drop in the regular session to close at $65.09.

The microblogging company reported first-quarter net income of $68 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with a loss of $8.3 million, or 1 cent a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for stock-based compensation and other expenses, earnings were 16 cents a share. Revenue rose to $1.04 billion from $807.6 million in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast adjusted earnings of 14 cents a share on revenue of $1.03 billion.

Twitter expects a second-quarter GAAP loss of $170 million to $120 million on revenue of $980 million to $1.08 billion. Analysts had forecast adjusted earnings of 16 cents a share and a GAAP loss of 4 cents a share on revenue of $1.06 billion.

Shares of Twitter have risen 20% year to date, and are up nearly 127% in the past 52 weeks. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index has increased about 12% so far this year, and is up nearly 45% in the past year.

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