If Musk succeeds in his plan to take the company private, it will be the end of the market for the company. Today, the social media platform posted a truncated Q1 earnings statement, providing a degree of transparency into how it is faring as a business.
The numbers speak in part to why the company might become an acquisition target. In the first quarter of the year, it posted revenues of $1.2 billion, up 16% on the same quarter a year ago, but in the middle of the range.
The MoPub sale resulted in a huge increase inDiluted Earnings Per Share: it was $0.61 on net income of $513 million, representing a net margin of 43%. The sale of MoPub resulted in a pre-tax gain of 970 million and income taxes of $331 million.
comparative figures were not included in the equation. A year ago in the same quarter, the company had net income of $68 million, a net margin of 7% and aDiluted Earnings per Share of $0.08.
For the quarter, the metric for measuring its audience was 229 million, up 15.9% from a year ago.
In the event that they were published about an hour later, it was because of the fact that they had said they would.
The range for the latter was huge, between $0.15 at the high end through to a loss per share of $0.49), but Yahoo figures show that analysts were expecting revenues on average of $1.22 billion. The company had set a guidance of between $1.17 billion and $1.27 billion for revenues. The statement didn't give guidance for the next quarter.
The longer story will only play out in the coming weeks, months and years, and will be whether going private under the ownership of Musk will actually give the breathing space it needs, away from the gaze of the public markets, to fix what.
There are a lot of questions surrounding this, for example, what role advertising will play in the business, and whether free speech will make the platform a free-for-all for some of the ugliest and worst.
After the results announcement, the stock price of the social media company was up slightly, just under 1% in pre-market trading. In the last month, the company's stock has been on a roller coaster, with Musk buying a 9.2% stake in the company, but not joining the board, and then offering to buy the company for the entire price. The deal will be approved here, so be sure to catch up on all our coverage here.
The market cap of the company is around $37 billion, which is less than the $44 billion that Musk is proposing to pay to take it private.
We won't get to hear the company's own words or ask questions about its numbers. In light of the pending transaction, the earnings call has been canceled.
More to come, refresh for updates.
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