Pinterest surges on revenue beat as social peers struggle
PINTEREST surged after reporting third-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ estimates, standing out from its social media peers in a difficult market.
Third-quarter sales grew 8 per cent to US$684.55 million, the company said, topping the average analyst estimate for US$666.85 million. Monthly active users also grew slightly to 445 million, from 444 million in the year-ago period, after three straight quarters of declines.
The stock gained more than 15 per cent in post-market trading. Pinterest’s shares had fallen 40 per cent this year through Thursday’s (Oct 27) close.
Pinterest, which helps users find and share image-based lifestyle ideas, is operating under its new chief executive officer, Bill Ready. Ready, a former executive at Alphabet’s Google and PayPal, replaced co-founder Ben Silbermann earlier this year. Ready has focused on growing users and improving opportunities and tools for ads on the platform, he said in an interview.
Pinterest’s revenue beat follows a miss by larger peers Snap and Alphabet, while Meta Platforms was in line with expectations. For the three months ending in December, Pinterest expects revenue growth to continue in the mid-single-digit range.
The social media industry has been grappling with a decrease in spending on digital ads as marketers worry about economic uncertainty and cope with a change in Apple’s privacy policy that made some platforms’ advertisements less effective.
Advertisers are under pressure to deliver, Ready said. Pinterest’s revenue growth “in an ad market that has been decelerating pretty rapidly, I think that demonstrates we’re showing up with a good value for advertisers”. BLOOMBERG
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