What happened

Shares of Twilio (TWLO 1.08%) have fallen today, down by 3% as of 12:45 p.m. EDT, after the company reported third-quarter results. The stock was down as much as 5% earlier in the morning.

So what

Revenue in the third quarter jumped 52% to $448 million, well ahead of the $407.2 million in sales that analysts were modeling for. That led to adjusted earnings per share of $0.04, also beating the Street's expectation of an adjusted net loss per share of $0.04.

Employee working on a laptop with the Twilio logo

Image source: Twilio.

Investors were already expecting strong results after the communications technology company updated its guidance earlier this month and said it would beat its guidance. Twilio now has over 208,000 customers and reported a dollar-based net expansion rate of 137%.

"Great digital engagement is becoming more critical to differentiate the customer experience, and companies across industries and around the world are choosing Twilio's customer engagement platform to build these solutions," CEO Jeff Lawson said in a statement. "Our performance in the third quarter is further evidence that Twilio's platform provides three things that every company needs today -- digital communications, software agility, and cloud scale."

Now what

After expecting a revenue beat in the third quarter, investors were more focused on guidance for the fourth quarter, which was mixed. Revenue in the fourth quarter is forecast at $450 million to $455 million, ahead of the consensus estimate of $432.1 million. That should result in an adjusted net loss per share of $0.08 to $0.11, which is worse than the $0.01 per share in red ink that the Street is expecting.