Twitter revenue more than doubles to $312M in Q2, monthly active users up 24% to 271M

Micro blogging service Twitter saw revenues rise over two-fold to $312 million for the second quarter ended June 30, 2014 over the year-ago period led by rise in advertising revenue which grew 129 per cent to $277 million.

The firm said mobile advertising revenue was 81 per cent of total advertising revenue and its mobile user base was 211 million or 78 per cent of the average monthly active users (MAU) in the second quarter.

Its average MAUs were 271 million as of June 30, 2014, an increase of 24 per cent year-over-year with mobile MAUs growing faster at 29 per cent in the same period. In contrast social networking giant Facebook's MAUS were 1.32 billion as of June 30, 2014, which increased 14 per cent year-over-year, while mobile MAUs increased 3 per cent to 1.07 billion.

Meanwhile, Twitter's data licensing and other revenue totaled $35 million, an increase of 90 per cent and international revenue totaled $102 million, an increase of 168 per cent year-over-year. International revenue was one third of the total revenue.

GAAP net loss was $145 million for the second quarter of 2014 compared to a net loss of $42 million in the same period last year. Twitter's GAAP net loss included $158 million of stock-based compensation expense.

Its adjusted EBITDA was $54 million for the second quarter of 2014 compared to $10 million in the same period last year.

Non-GAAP net income was $15 million compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $16 million in the same period last year.

For the current quarter, Twitter is forecasting revenue of $330 to $340 million and for 2014 full year it is expecting to cross the $1 billion revenue mark and has given an estimate of around $1.3 billion in topline with adjusted EBITDA of $210-230 million.

During the last quarter Twitter introduced new features including real-time scoring, push notifications, event and match timelines, and a voting ballot feature for the world football tournament. In addition, Twitter launched new web profiles and the ability to send private messages within Vine.

It also launched a number of new advertiser tools including mobile app promotions, which allow mobile app developers to drive installs and engagements on Twitter, and website cards, which allow advertisers to easily surface website content within a Tweet and drive relevant traffic to any page of their site such as their home page, product page, or an important blog post.

It expanded state/region geo-targeting to help marketers meet local advertising objectives in additional countries including the UK, France and Indonesia, among others, and launched its self service ad platform for small and medium sized businesses in Spain, Israel and South Africa.

Twitter also closed the acquisition of Gnip, a provider of social data, and entered into agreements to acquire several other companies including TapCommerce, a mobile retargeting and re-engagement advertising firm, and SnappyTV, a platform for video editing and distribution.