By
Steve Muchoki
September 20th, 2023
PINS stock jumped 8% in after-market hours as the company’s ad revenue per user was up 28% at $1.33.
On Wednesday, April 27, social media giant Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) reported its first-quarter (Q1) earnings for the year 2022. The company reported a healthy set of numbers beating analyst expectations with its stock price soaring 8% in aftermarket hours.
Over the last year, global ad revenue per user was up 28% at $1.33. This was above Wall Street’s ARPU expectations of $1.31. However, the company said that its monthly active users tanked 9% over the last year to 433 million. The market had anticipated the total monthly active users at 437.9 million.
Pinterest cited the pandemic growth in the year-ago quarter. Furthermore, it also cited lower search traffic from Google’s algorithm change in November 2021. Before the company announced its quarterly earnings, the PINS stock tanked 2.86% on Wednesday, April 27.
Global Macros Impacting Advertising Revenue
Also, global macroeconomic conditions have been paying some art to affect the tech company’s quarterly revenues. For e.g. inflation has been hampering some marketers. In the shareholder letter, Pinterest said:
Trends leading to its revenue growth “were offset by macro headwinds, including supply chain issues and other factors, which continued to impact one of our largest segments, CPG advertisers, as well as some mid-market advertisers.”
“In Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine compounded a difficult macro environment, impacting many of our advertisers in that region,” the company added.
Company CEO Ben Silbermann said:
“Despite a challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, we grew revenue 18% year-over-year”.
But Pinterest is not alone in facing these challenges. Last week, another social media giant Snapchat (NYSE: SNAP) said that its customers are pausing their advertisement campaigns or reducing budgets. Thus, they are preparing for challenging times ahead.
Earlier this week on Tuesday, Google’s YouTube also posted disappointing ad results.
Pinterest (PINS) Stock Volatility in Q1
Pinterest (PINS) stock has been on a constant decline this year. So far the PINS stock has corrected 50% year-to-date. The recent decline in the stock price came as the social media platform was losing users very quickly during the last quarter of 2021.
Besides, the company is also experimenting with new business ideas. Last November, Pinterest introduced Pinterest TV. “Pinterest TV episodes are refreshed each weekday and will be recorded and available for Pinners to view on-demand, and save and rewatch later,” the company noted.