Cloud communications specialist Twilio (TWLO 1.08%) has switched into a higher gear during the pandemic after severely underperforming the market in 2019, with the COVID-19 crisis creating the ideal conditions for the company's business to thrive.
As of this writing, Twilio shares have tripled in 2020 as the shift toward remote work has triggered a jump in demand for the company's offerings. More organizations are shifting their contact centers from physical locations to the cloud in a bid to maintain the continuity of their operations, helping Twilio deliver impressive quarterly results in recent months.
With the latest earnings season already underway, Twilio investors can expect more good news when it releases its third-quarter results on Oct. 26. Let's see why.
Twilio's latest acquisition will bring a new catalyst
Twilio recently announced that it is acquiring Segment for $3.2 billion to enter another fast-growing niche. Shares surged on the news, as Segment is a customer data platform provider that's expected to increase Twilio's total addressable market by $17 billion to $79 billion.
Several third-party estimates indicate that the customer data platform market could clock high growth rates for the next several years. One such estimate from Grand View Research predicts that the market could grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.5% through 2025. Motley Fool reporter Leo Sun points out that Segment is one of the leading providers of a cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) customer-data platform, and had a 9% market share in 2019.
Segment's revenue reportedly shot up 88% last year to $180 million, exceeding Twilio's fiscal 2019 revenue growth of 75%. So Segment is likely to accelerate Twilio's growth once the acquisition is completed in the current quarter. Additionally, don't be surprised to see Twilio's latest buy boost its financial performance, as it could create additional revenue opportunities through cross-selling.
Segment has over 5,000 customers that Twilio can sell its existing portfolio of services to. And at the same time, Twilio has over 200,000 active customers who can now opt to buy a new service from the cloud communications specialist.
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Gearing up for long-term growth
Twilio's core business -- enabling its clients to connect with customers over various channels such as messages, calls, and email through its application programming interfaces (APIs) -- is already a fast-growing one. The company claims that it can help its clients deploy complete contact centers in the cloud quickly. What's more, customers using the Twilio Flex cloud contact center platform have reported a 34% reduction in operational expenses.
Mordor Intelligence estimates that the cloud-based contact center market could be worth $45 billion by 2025, compared to $13.6 billion last year. Similarly, the email marketing market is expected to be worth over $27 billion by 2026, clocking a CAGR of nearly 20% as per a third-party estimate. Twilio made an entry into this market a couple of years ago with the acquisition of SendGrid, a move that has worked out well for the company.
And now the acquisition of Segment will add another area for Twilio to attack, while also complementing the other services the company offers. Twilio's presence in email marketing and the foray into the customer-data platform space could make the company's core offering more attractive and aid long-term growth.
Not surprisingly, analyst estimates compiled by Yahoo! Finance anticipate a sharp rise in Twilio's earnings next year, and they expect it to sustain a high bottom-line growth rate for a longer time frame. As such, investors looking to buy a top growth stock this earnings season should keep an eye on Twilio, as it has room to run higher.
