Pinterest Inc. tackled the roaring 2020 by adding a record of more than 100 million users for the year and growing by 76% in year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter, on the strength of the holiday retail, has the company said Thursday.
Pinterest PINS,
the stock rose sharply after hours, to 10%, after rising 0.9% to $ 77.85 in the regular session.
The online pinboard company, which said its global monthly active users rose 37% year-on-year to 459 million, had a net income of $ 207.8 million in the fourth quarter or 30 cents a share shown, compared to a loss of $ 35.7 million, or 6 cents. a share in the year-ago period. The adjusted earnings were 43 cents per share, adjusted for compensation on shares and more. Revenue rose to $ 705.6 million from $ 399.9 million in the previous quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet forecast revenue of $ 645.7 million at 34 cents a share.
In the company’s news release, CFO Todd Morgenfeld attributes a ‘remarkable year of growth’ to ‘continued product innovation, execution and an earlier and longer holiday season’.
Pinterest made more pens ‘affordable’ and expanded new formats such as video as it tried to make its platform more attractive, and CEO Ben Silbermann promised more efforts in those areas.
In addition to investing in automated advertising tools, he said the company is planning new technologies and products “to improve people and find products they love with tools … [to] visualize and plan, ”referring to a tool that allows users to try eye shadow within the Pinterest app, for example.
For the full year, the company had a loss of 22 cents per share at $ 1.69 billion. Analysts forecast a loss of 35 cents per share on $ 1.6 billion in revenue.
In the company’s revenue call in San Francisco, Morgenfeld said he expects revenue to grow by about 70% year-on-year in the first quarter, but he will keep an eye on COVID’s impact on engagement ‘, which can be adversely affected if restrictions are facilitated.
According to Morgenfeld, another thing the company is looking at is privacy and the regulatory environment surrounding the issue. He mentioned that a change in Apple’s operating system update that would allow users to opt out of targeted advertising could affect Pinterest. (Facebook and Apple are embroiled in a word battle over the upcoming change.)
As for the annual record growth in users, Silbermann said on the call that it is being helped by an increase in Gen Z users. He said the next growth wave could come from international markets, representing 17% of total revenue: “We are still relatively penetrating there.”
Pinterest’s share has risen 17% to date (and is 245% higher in the last 52 weeks), compared to a 2% increase in the S&P 500 index SPX,
so far this year.