• by Ben Frederick , Staff Writer @mp_benfred, March 10, 2016

Bully for Square, which has released its first earnings report as a public company, and done better than analysts were expecting. The mobile payments company, also known as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s other full-time CEO gig, announced that it had exceeded analyst estimates with $374 million in revenues in Q4 of 2015.

The company handled 47% more payments than in the same period last year, about $10.2 billion. The company is still operating at a loss, losing $80.5 million this past quarter, up from $37.1 million in the same period the year previous.

All in all, pretty typical for a young tech company looking to grow, though holiday shopping likely drove much of the revenue. Numbers probably will be on track in Q1 and Q2 this year.

Square is also going to be getting out from under its partnership with Starbucks this year -- a partnership that was originally lauded as a boon that turned into a giant weight around the company’s neck, largely due to so many fees being paid to credit card companies. That deal will expire in the third quarter.

Square is swimming in deep waters, with other tech companies like Apple and Google getting more aggressive about payments, as well as credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard stepping into the space.

So Square has some dead weight it can’t get rid of fast enough, but even with that it was able to outperform expectations. Good for you, Jack Dorsey. Now let’s just hope he can do something similar with Twitter.