SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Square Inc. (SQ) on Thursday reported a loss of $76.8 million in its fourth quarter.

On a per-share basis, the San Francisco-based company said it had a loss of 17 cents. Earnings, adjusted for stock option expense and costs related to mergers and acquisitions, came to 27 cents per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 19 cents per share.

The mobile payments services provider posted revenue of $4.08 billion in the period, also topping Street forecasts. Eight analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $3.98 billion.

For the year, the company reported profit of $166.8 million, or 33 cents per share. Revenue was reported as $17.66 billion.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SQ at https://www.zacks.com/ap/SQ

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