Twitter’s stock plunged Thursday after the social media giant reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that missed expectations, with executives blaming advertising platform glitches that hurt its ability to target users.
Shares of Twitter plummeted more than 19 percent during trading Thursday. The company posted earnings per share of 17 cents, falling short of the 20 cents that was expected by Wall Street analysts. Revenue for the period was $823.7 million, versus the $874 million expected.
For the third quarter, “we discovered, and took steps to remediate bugs that primarily affected our legacy Mobile Application Promotion (MAP) product, impacting our ability to target ads and share data with measurement and ad partners,” Twitter said in its letter to shareholders.
“We also experienced greater-than-expected seasonality in our advertising business that began in July and continued into August.”
Twitter said these issues negatively impacted year-over-year revenue growth for the period.
Advertising revenue hit $702 million for the third quarter, which was up from the same period last year, but also failed to match analyst expectations.
Twitter also published fourth-quarter guidance that fell short of expectations. The company is forecasting total revenue to be between $940 million and $1.01 billion for the period, which is below the $1.06 billion that Wall Street is expecting.
In recent weeks, Twitter has found itself in the middle of a Democratic skirmish over whether President Donald Trump should be banned from the platform.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) has called on Twitter to give President Trump the boot, claiming that he incites “fear” and that he made comments about the so-called White House “whistleblower.”
But rival candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) have both said President Trump should be allowed to remain on Twitter.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
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