• by Wayne Friedman , February 7, 2019

Twitter’s stock was sharply down after forecasting lower-than-expected revenue.

The company said first-quarter 2019 revenue would be between $715 million and $775 million, well below analysts' estimates of $765 million.

At the same time, Twitter posted much better-than-expected fourth-quarter 2018 revenue --- up 24% to $909 million. Total advertising revenue climbed at nearly the same level -- 23% to $791 million. Twitter took in $425 million in U.S. advertising, with $366 million from international.

Video ad formats remain its fastest-growing ad format, according to the company.

Data licensing and other revenue during the period was up 35% to $117 million.

Twitter stock was down nearly 10% to $30.87 in mid-day Thursday trading. Net income was at $255 million, up from $91 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Twitter said its key average daily active user numbers climbed 9.5% to 126 million in the fourth quarter from a year ago.

In the third quarter of 2018, Twitter had 124 million users. Its monthly active users averaged 321 million, in line with analysts estimates.