Twilio reported better-than-expected first quarter earnings, but its second quarter revenue outlook was light.

The company reported a first quarter net loss of $55 million, or 31 cents a share, on revenue of $1.047 billion, up 4% from a year ago. Adjusted earnings were 80 cents a share, which were 21 cents a share ahead of Wall Street estimates.

As for the outlook, Twilio projected revenue of $1.05 billion to $1.06 billion with non-GAAP earnings of 64 cents a share to 68 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for non-GAAP second quarter earnings of 62 cents a share on revenue of $1.08 billion.

Overall, Twilio growth is anemic, but the company is improving operating efficiency.  Khozema Shipchandler, CEO of Twilio, said "we are operating with greater financial discipline, operational rigor, and focus on innovation than ever before."

Since its last earnings report, Twilio has evaluated its Segment unit and decided to keep it. Twilio said it authorized another $2 billion to repurchase shares on top of the $1 billion it approved in February.

For the full year, Twilio is projecting revenue growth of 5% to 10%.

Here's a look at Twilio's first quarter key facts:

  • The company ended the quarter with 5,582 employees.
  • It had 313,000 active customer accounts as of March 31, up from 300,000 a year ago.
  • Communications revenue was $972 million, up 4% from a year ago, with operating profit of $249 million.
  • Segment revenue was $75 million with an operating loss of $21 million.

Shipchandler said on an earnings conference call:

"We made progress on a number of our AI products and are driving better synergies with our Communications and Segment products. In Q1, we announced Agent Copilot, our first of three launches in 2024, where Twilio will natively embed Segment into Twilio's Communications products. With Agent Copilot, we've embedded Unified Profiles powered by Segment within Flex, giving agents deeper insights into their customers' behaviors and preferences. By accessing the real-time data from Unified Profiles, Agent Copilot assists in intelligent routing to agents and provides them with actionable insights for each customer interaction, automating and enhancing agent productivity while reducing resolution times. Agent Copilot and Unified Profiles are currently in public beta."

He added that Twilio has integrated with Databricks and Snowflake so data can flow between Twilio and the data platforms.