Image-sharing website Pinterest reported an 11% increase in revenue from showing ads to inspo-hungry users, sending shares up more than 19%.
Pinheads
Advertising sales won a big tick from investors, but it was the user front that really got a cheer, as the site hit 482 million users — a base that's ~30% larger than Twitter / X reported (368m) at the end of last year. Figures in the all-important US & Canada region went up slightly — an improvement on 2021, when Americans and Canadians were giving up on Pinterest in the millions — but it was the “Rest of World” segment that really shone, gaining 12 million new pinners.
The site’s emphasis on personal curation has made it a hub for aesthetically aspirational food, fashion, and lifestyle imagery… and, increasingly, a dream destination for advertisers. With an estimated 85% of users discovering new brands on Pinterest and more than 25% of site usage related to finding/buying products, advertisers are incentivized to be creative in drawing on users' interests. Gen Z in particular seem to love the app, with execs claiming that younger cohorts “save 2x more content in their first year on Pinterest, relative to older cohorts”.
Snap, crackle and pop
At its peak in September 2021, ephemeral messaging giant Snapchat was worth an eye-watering $132bn — nearly 4x what Pinterest was worth then. But the Snap bubble has since popped and, at the time of writing, Pinterest has overtaken it as the most valuable of the two, with a market cap of $20bn, ahead of Snap’s $16.5bn.
