Pinterest (PINS -0.52%) is slated to report its first-quarter 2021 results after the market close on Tuesday, April 27. A conference call with analysts is scheduled for the same day at 6 p.m. EDT.
It seems likely that many investors will be approaching the visual image-discovery platform operator's release with much optimism. The company performed well last year, thanks in part to a tailwind from the COVID-19 pandemic, which boosted overall social media use.
Enthused by the company's robust recent performance and bright outlook, investors have been pouring into the growth stock. Shares of Pinterest have gained a whopping 347% over the one-year period through April 14, and are only about 6% off their all-time high set in mid-February. The S&P 500 index has returned about 47% over the last year.
Here's what to watch in Pinterest's upcoming Q1 report.
Image source: Getty Images.
Pinterest's key numbers
Below are the company's results from Q1 2020, its Q1 2021 guidance, and Wall Street's consensus estimates to use as benchmarks.
| Metric | Q1 2020 Result | Pinterest's Q1 2021 Guidance | Wall Street's Q1 2021 Consensus Estimate | Wall Street's Projected Change (YOY) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Revenue |
$271.9 million |
YOY growth in low-70% range |
$472.7 million |
74% |
|
Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) |
($0.10) | N/A | $0.08 |
N/A. Result expected to flip to positive from negative. |
Data sources: Pinterest and Yahoo! Finance. YOY = year over year. Note: Pinterest doesn't issue earnings guidance.
Given how new the company is to the public markets (it held its initial public offering in April 2019), revenue growth is probably the most important metric to use to gauge its overall performance.
For context, in the fourth quarter of 2020, Pinterest's revenue soared 76% year over year to $705.6 million. Adjusted EPS skyrocketed 258% to $0.43. Results for both the top and bottom lines sped by Wall Street's expectations.
Key user stats
Like other social media companies, Pinterest has an advertising-based business model. The two key metrics that determine its revenue are the number of monthly active users (MAUs) and global average revenue per user (ARPU).
Last quarter, the company's MAUs surged 37% year over year to 459 million, and its ARPU jumped 29% to $1.57.
For some context, for the same quarter, Q4 2020, social media giant Facebook had 2.8 billion MAUs -- about six times as many as Pinterest. This fact suggests that Pinterest still has a long runway for growth.
Second-quarter 2021 guidance
The company's second-quarter outlook, relative to Wall Street's expectations, will probably be the biggest factor in any post-earnings stock price move. That's because the stock market is a forward-looking machine.
For Q2, analysts are modeling for Pinterest's revenue to soar 94% year over year to $528 million. On the bottom line, the consensus estimate is for adjusted EPS of $0.10, compared to an adjusted loss of $0.07 per share in the year-ago period.
Pin the date: Pinterest's release of its Q1 results is scheduled for after the market close on Tuesday, April 27.
