Twilio’s stock jumps on solid earnings and revenue beat and strong momentum in voice AI

A solid earnings and revenue beat helped to reignite investor enthusiasm for the communications software maker Twilio Inc. today, and its stock jumped more than 17% in after-hours trading. The company’s second-quarter results were boosted by the rapid uptake of a new voice-based artificial intelligence product, the company said, and it also offered strong guidance for the September quarter.

Twilio reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of $1.47 per share, easily beating the analysts’ consensus estimate of $1.32 per share. Revenue for the quarter jumped 22% from the same period one year ago to $1.5 billion, cruising past Wall Street’s target of $1.43 billion in sales.

San Francisco-based Twilio sells a cloud-based communications platform that offers tools for developers to embed voice, text messaging and video into their applications through easy-to-use application programming interfaces. The software also makes it easier for cloud-based apps to communication. In addition, it operates a growing business selling customer engagement tools such as the Twilio Engage growth automation platform, which is used by marketing teams to enhance customer relationships via more personalized experiences.

Chief Executive Khozema Shipchandler (pictured) said the results show that the company has begun a powerful new chapter, marked by organic growth acceleration, record-breaking profitability and free cash flow. “At SIGNAL, we unveiled a revamped Twilio platform, giving customers the building blocks they need to power rich, lifelong conversations,” he said, referring to the company’s annual developer conference in May. “In a world where humans and AI agents increasingly work side by side, Twilio is providing the infrastructure to power them both.”

It was at SIGNAL that Twilio unveiled its new Voice AI product, which gives companies a way to build telephone chatbots that can understand what people are saying and reply to them naturally, without any human oversight. Shipchandler told analysts on a conference call that Voice AI has seen strong early traction.

Looking to the third quarter, Twilio sees more of the same. It offered a healthy outlook, forecasting earnings of $1.42 to $1.47 per share on revenue of between $1.505 billion and $1.515 billion. That’s better than expected, with analysts targeting earnings of just $1.40 per share on lower revenue of $1.46 billion. The company also raised its full-year revenue outlook, saying it now sees growth of between 18% and 18.5%, up from an earlier forecast of 14% to 15%.

The after-hours surge in Twilio’s stock price means that it’s now up more than 35% in the year to date, outpacing many of its peers in a software industry that’s still wary of the rise of AI models.

Photo: Twilio