Twitter Comm India’s Revenue Slips Into Red, Reports INR 32 Cr Loss

For the first time in five years, Twitter Communications India has reported a loss of INR 31.84 Cr in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22). This stands in stark contrast to FY21 when it posted a profit of INR 7.76 Cr. 

On the other hand, operating revenue grew more than 81% to INR 156.75 Cr in FY22, up from INR 86.36 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

It is pertinent to note that these numbers do not include sales revenues of the social media giant, but rather the income generated for rendering support services for Twitter’s group entities.

Expenses also saw a steep rise (almost 140%), growing from INR 75.79 Cr in FY21 to INR 182.06 Cr in the fiscal year ended March 2022. Of these, employee benefits accounted for a major chunk of the expenditure. Twitter Communications India spent INR 1,368.1 Cr on employee benefits in FY22, a dramatic rise of 216% from INR 432.5 Cr in the previous financial year.

Twitter Communications India also spent INR 6.89 Cr on marketing and advertising, nearly double from INR 3.59 Cr in FY21.

Twitter Communications India has not had a single loss-making year in the past five years:

• The entity reported a profit of INR 7.76 Cr in FY21
• It clinched a profit of INR 7.03 Cr in FY20 
• The entity posted a profit after tax of INR 5.83 Cr in FY19
• Twitter Communication India posted a profit of INR 2.79 Cr in FY18

This comes at a tumultuous time for the microblogging platform. After much legal drama and a public spat, Elon Musk took over the reigns of the company on October 27 after a $44 Bn acquisition. As his first order of business, he fired CEO Parag Agrawal and then, later on, began mass layoffs at the company. 

Back home, multiple reports indicate that the new management has laid off 80-90% of their India team. According to Inc42 sources, the microblogging platform is also looking to wind up its offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Sources also told Inc42 that India was not contributing significantly to Twitter’s bottomline despite being one of the largest markets for the social media platform by the number of active users (24.45 Mn). 

The dismal results by Twitter Communications only confirm the suspicions highlighted by experts. As expected, Musk is looking at reorganising the business at Twitter and aims to achieve that by slashing the workforce. With costs rising and advertisers boycotting the platform, Twitter has been left in a quandary as it looks for alternate revenue streams. 

While the row continues to play out in the open and with losses mounting at the tech major, it remains to be seen if Musk can weather the storm. But, amidst all this, many have been left without a job even as the social media platform grapples with the talent drain.