Pinterest Inc. ended a vibrant 2020 by adding a record number of more than 100 million users for the year and posting a 76% year-over-year growth in fourth-quarter revenue thanks to Christmas retail, the company said Thursday.
Pinterest PINS,
Stocks were up sharply, up 10% after hours, after rising 0.9% during the regular session to close at $ 77.85.
The online bulletin board company, which said its global monthly active users were up 37% year over year to 459 million, reported fourth quarter net profit of $ 207.8 million, or 30 cents a share, compared to a loss of $ 35.7 million, or 6 cents. a share, in the period of a year ago. Adjusted earnings were 43 cents per share, adjusted for stock-based compensation and more. Sales increased from $ 399.9 million in the same quarter a year ago to $ 705.6 million. Analysts polled by FactSet predicted earnings of 34 cents a share on revenues of $ 645.7 million.
In the company’s press release, Chief Financial Officer Todd Morgenfeld attributed a “remarkable year of growth” to “continued product innovation, execution and an earlier and longer holiday season.”
Pinterest made more pins ‘shoppable’ and introduced new formats like video while trying to make its platform more engaging, and Chief Executive Ben Silbermann promised more efforts in those areas.
In addition to investing in automated advertising tools, he said the company is planning new technology and products “ to improve how people discover and find products they love with tools … [to] visualize and plan ”, citing for example a tool that allows users to try eyeshadow in the Pinterest app.
For the full year, the company had a loss of 22 cents a share on revenue of $ 1.69 billion. Analysts had predicted a loss of 35 cents a share on $ 1.6 billion in revenue.
During the San Francisco-based company’s earnings call, Morgenfeld said he expects revenue to grow by about 70% year over year in the first quarter, but said he would “ monitor the impact of COVID on engagement. ” , which can be negatively affected. as restrictions diminish.
Another thing the company is keeping an eye on is the privacy and regulations surrounding the issue, according to Morgenfeld. He said a change in Apple’s operating system update that allows users to opt out of certain targeted ads could affect Pinterest. (Facebook and Apple are in a war of words about the impending change.)
As for the record annual growth of users, Silbermann said on the call that it was helped by an increase in Gen Z users. He said the next wave of growth could come from international markets, which represent 17% of total sales: “We’re still relatively under-penetrated there.”
Pinterest’s stock is up 17% year-to-date (and up 245% over the past 52 weeks), compared to a 2% rise in the S&P 500 index SPX,
so far this year.