Reddit, the social media platform known for its devoted online communities and raucous debates, surprised Wall Street by turning a profit for the first time just months after going public, sending shares up 25 per cent to a record high.
On a call with analysts, Reddit’s executives said that investments in its ad tech, designed to improve the performance of ads, were bearing fruit, as was its move to use “machine translation” to automatically translate its content into languages to boost its audience. It now has nearly 100mn daily active users, up 47 per cent year-on-year in the quarter.
Net income for the company, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange in March, was $29.9mn in the third quarter, up from a net loss of $7.4mn in the same period last year, and well above Wall Street estimates of $10mn in losses.