Twitter’s earnings beat expectations

Twitter Inc. topped estimates for earnings and revenue in the third quarter amid higher spending from advertisers, marking a much-needed boost for the social networking site after months of scrutiny from lawmakers and criticism about fake or offensive accounts. Its stock surged Thursday.

Monthly active users averaged 326 million, the San Francisco company said Thursday. That’s a decrease of 9 million from the second quarter. Twitter warned in its July earnings report of a continued drop in the metric as a result of efforts to clean up its service and stricter privacy rules in Europe. The company said those trends will continue and lead to another decline in monthly users for the fourth quarter.

Twitter’s financial health has been consistently improving in recent months, benefiting from a push to add more live video and personalized content. The social network’s 29% jump in revenue in the recent period marks the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, and Twitter has reported positive net income for four straight quarters. Though sales and earnings have grown stronger, Twitter has suffered from a drop in user metrics, especially after purging its ranks to eliminate fake accounts — an effort that continues ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November.

“We have a more engaged audience and we are delivering a better return on investment for advertisers,” Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal said.

Twitter shares jumped 15.5% to $31.80. They are up about 32% for the year.

In the third quarter, revenue jumped to $758.1 million, topping the average analyst projection of $701.3 million, according to data from Bloomberg. Profit was 21 cents a share, higher than the average estimate of 14 cents.