Pinterest latest performance update has shown that they have lost over 34 million active users over the last two quarters of the 2021.
As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to slow down, people are returning to shops in real life rather than using online retail sites. Pinterest has explained to their shareholders in this update that “as lockdowns eased, people have embraced life outside their homes, a trend that caused a dramatic decline of our year-over-year growth rate.”
Pinterest had seen a rapid rise in monthly active users during the lockdown period, Pinterest added over 100 million active users and was seen as a replacement for real-life window shopping.
It was only natural that with actual shopping centres opening up again, the need for Pinterest would decrease and they would lose a lot of active users.
In terms of the actual numbers, Pinterest had 478 million active users in the first quarter of 2021, however by the second quarter this had declined to 454 million, down 24 million.
Now, with the most recent report for quarter 3 coming out, Pinterest has lost another 10 million monthly active users down to 444 million. So after a long stretch of growth that encompassed 2020 and the start of 2021, Pinterest has lost 34 million monthly active users of the past two quarters.
However, despite these losses in actual users, the Pinterest report did have some positives to show about the platforms growth.
This can be seen in the average revenue per user numbers. This increased again in quarter 3 after taking a dip at the start of 2021. In the US the average revenue per Pinterest user increased from $3.99 in quarter 1 of 2021 to $5.55 in the most recent report.
Pinterest, whose shopping tools are mainly used solely in the US, is attempting to grow its revenue streams around the globe. With International revenue per user growing from $0.26 at the beginning of 2021 to $0.38 in the most recent report.
Pinterest was keen to point out that “shopping engagement remains robust, with the number of Pinners engaging with shopping surfaces up more than 20% quarter over quarter and up 60% year over year.”
Even with lower usage rates, as Pinterest finds more ways to add revenue streams to their site, it can continue to drive user sales.
In recent months, Pinterest has added a range of new options including Augmented Reality Try On options and a “Watch Feed”, a full-screen Tik-Tok like stream of Pinterest content. Pinterest is continuing to look for ways to add video consumption to their app
Lastly, in terms of revenue Pinterest was up 43% year over year to $633 million.
