Talk Money: February 12

  • 12/02/2016
Tony Field (Paul Henry)
Tony Field (Paul Henry)

It is earnings season and we have just had the latest results from two household names. One of them is based here in New Zealand. The other is a social media giant.

SkyCity Entertainment announced a six month net profit of $71 million. That is an increase of 30 percent. Revenue increased 14 percent to $566 million.

Tourism is booming in New Zealand and SkyCity is one of the beneficiaries. Its international business, what you and I might call the VIPs or high rollers, saw turnover rise 51 percent to $7.2 billion.

The other big result was Twitter. Its share price fell to new lows after announcing its latest result.

Its active user numbers have dropped by 2 million to 305 million.

That has spooked Wall Street. It is making unfavourable comparisons to Facebook, which now has a user base of 1.6 billion.

Investors are asking how Twitter can turn things around. Its share price has fallen to US$14 from a peak of $70.