Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest, rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on May 15, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Pinterest shares rose 15% in extended trading Thursday after the company reported first-quarter earnings and provided better-than-expected guidance.
Here’s how the company did, compared to analysts’ consensus estimates from LSEG:
- Revenue: $855 million vs. $847 million expected
- Earnings per share: $0.23 cents Adj. vs. $0.26 cents expected
The social media company said second-quarter sales should come in the range of $960 million to $980 million, which at the midpoint is higher than analysts expectations of $966 million.
Pinterest had 570 million monthly active users in the first quarter, ahead of Wall Street estimates of 565 million.
First quarter sales stemming from the U.S. and Canada came in at $663 million, missing analysts estimates of $664 million. Its first-quarter Europe revenue was $147 million, topping analysts projections of $141 million.
Pinterest logged $172 million in first quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBIDTA, which was higher than the $164 million that Wall Street was expecting. First quarter EBIDTA margin was 20% compared to analysts expectations of 19.4%.
The company recorded $1.52 in first quarter global average revenue per user, which was in line with analysts estimates.
Pinterest’s finance chief Julia Brau Donnelly told analysts during an earnings call that while the company is “not immune to the macro environment,” executives are optimistic about its advertising products and that its overall business is healthy.
Still, Donnelly said “there have been small pockets of spend that have been impacted by tariffs in recent weeks,” pointing to unspecified Asia-based e-commerce retailers curbing their digital advertising spend in light of the recent ending of the de minimis trade loophole.
Bill Ready, Pinterest’s CEO, told analysts that executives have focused on morphing the company “from a platform with declining users and modest revenue growth a few years ago into a secular share taker with a more resilient business than ever before.”
“We’ve made Pinterest a destination for a user, particularly a shopping destination,” Ready said. “Pinterest is where Gen Z goes to shop”
Pinterest was the latest online advertising company to report quarterly earnings amid a rocky economy and an ongoing U.S. and China trade dispute. Although many tech companies like Meta reported solid first-quarter results, they shared some trepidation about the coming quarters and rest of the year.
Meta finance chief Susan Li last week said that “Asia-based e-commerce exporters” have slashed their digital advertising spending, echoing Donnelly’s comments.
“It’s very early, hard to know how things will play out over the quarter, and certainly, harder to know that for the rest of the year,” Li said on Meta’s earnings call.
Reddit shares jumped as high as 19% last Thursday when the company reported first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates. But after executives discussed the tough economy and Google-related search challenges during an earnings call, Reddit’s receded to around 5% in after-hours trading that day.
Snap reported first-quarter earnings last week that beat on sales, but the company declined to provide guidance because of macroeconomic uncertainties, which caused its stock to sink about 13%.
Alphabet reported first-quarter earnings on Apr. 24 and said that its Google advertising sales rose 8.5% year over year to $66.89 billion while YouTube ad revenue increased 10% to $8.93 billion. Executives at the company then told analysts that it expects some headwinds to its core advertising business, particularly from Asia.
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