Twilio (TWLO) Shares Flying High After Strong Q4 Results

Twilio Inc. (NYSE:TWLO) has been around for the last 13 years. It was one of the first platforms that enabled businesses to program communications over the cloud. Its API allows developers to create secure communications over the cloud while maintaining security. The company went public in 2016 by selling 10 million shares at $15 each piece for total proceeds of $150 million.

TWLO has performed well since then, particularly over the last year. The work-from-home trend post Covid-19 pandemic drove demand for TWLO’s software to create programmatic messaging, email, and voice communications. TWLO share price skyrocketed about 250 percent in 2020 alone.

The cloud services provider once again caught investors’ attention on Thursday after its shares made a new 52-week high of $457.03 following strong financial results for the fourth quarter. Twilio reported an adjusted profit of 4 cents per share for the three months ended Dec. 31, contrary to analysts’ projection for a loss of 8 cents per share. Revenue jumped 65 percent on a year-over-year basis to $548.1 million, easily beating the consensus estimate of $455 million.

Commenting on the quarter, CEO Jeff Lawson said, “These results reinforced that we are addressing a generational opportunity, and with our acquisition of Segment and strong traction with Flex, we are building the leading customer engagement platform to improve every interaction that businesses have with their customers.”

The company’s active customers increased to 221,000 in the fourth quarter, significantly higher than 179,000 in the same period of 2019.

Twilio also issued a strong revenue outlook for 2021. It expects to report revenue in the range of $526 million to $536 million for the current fiscal year, translating to year-over-year growth of 44-47 percent.