“Most people had assumed advertising revenue was getting weaker,” Mark Mahaney, a managing director covering Internet research at RBC Capital Markets, told me. The company reported revenue in the first quarter was up 13 percent despite the drop-off, my colleague Rachel Lerman reports. Tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter that rely primarily on digital advertising are vulnerable to the broad economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus. Twitter’s Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal said the coronavirus had impacted Twitter’s advertising revenue globally “more significantly" in March as it spread to pandemic levels. The polling indicates one major barrier to the tech companies' plans might be lack of smartphones.

Source: Washington Post April 29, 2020 12:56 UTC