Twitter dug itself out of one hole on earnings day only to immediately dig itself into another

Twitter has an unfortunate track record of disappointing investors on earnings day, and this quarter was no different.

Twitter shares slid more than 10% in after-hours trading. So what happened?

By several measures, Twitter actually had a decent first quarter. (Of course it helped that analysts kept lowering the bar.) The company narrowed its net loss by 50% and reported 310 million monthly active users, up 5 million from the previous quarter.

But it showed weakness in revenue, both in its reported figures and its outlook for the current quarter.

Its $594.5 million in first-quarter sales fell short of analysts’ average estimate of $608 million and was below the low end of the range of Twitter’s own guidance ($595 million to $610 million). At a 36% rise year over year, it’s the slowest quarter of revenue growth since Twitter went public.

This quarter’s growth is likely to be even slower. Twitter said it expects revenue of $590 million to $610 million for the second quarter, which would represent only a 17% to 21% increase from the year-ago period.

The company blamed the first-quarter revenue miss on a slower-than-expected pickup in advertising spending by clients. It also said the strong dollar hurt revenue, noting sales would’ve increased 39% if foreign exchange rates were not a factor.