Twilio posts surprise profit on remote-work boost

(Reuters) – Twilio Inc on Monday posted a surprise third-quarter profit and forecast sales above estimates for the fourth, as a switch to remote working and learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic boosted demand for cloud services.

The cloud communications company, however, expects to post a loss of 8 cents to 11 cents per share for the current quarter. Analysts on average were expecting a profit of 2 cents.

Shares of the company were down 1.2% in extended trading.

Excluding items, Twilio posted a profit of 4 cents per share for the third quarter, while analysts had expected a loss of 3 cents per share.

The company’s revenue jumped over 50% to about $448 million in the third quarter and beat estimates of $409.9 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Twilio’s active customer accounts rose 21% to 208,000 as of Sept. 30.

Twilio, which earlier this month said it would buy customer data platform Segment for $3.2 billion in an all-stock deal, expects sales for the current quarter in the range of $450 million to $455 million. Analysts were expecting $437.4 million.

(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)