Pinterest (PINS 4.04%), one of the more popular stay-at-home stocks earlier in the pandemic, has fared less brilliantly on Wall Street as the global health crisis has entered new phases. While the image-centric social media company has continued to grow its top and bottom line, a decline in monthly active users has had some investors concerned about its future.
In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Dec. 17, Fool contributor Rachel Warren explains why investors shouldn't count Pinterest out just yet, despite its slowing user growth.
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Rachel Warren: I went with a stock that l actually talked about a little bit earlier today, and that's Pinterest. This was a really popular pandemic stock that has seen a bit of decline in its monthly active user growth.
I think part of that has been due to the fact that you're making year-over-year comparisons still to 2020, when everything was so amped-up, and some of these companies were really increasing their online spend with advertising.
But, all that to say, Pinterest stock is down about 50% over the past year. There's been a lot of investors that have not been particularly thrilled with how the company has been doing.
But a quick look at the company's most recent quarterly report -- its revenue was up 43% year over year. The company was profitable; net income was $94 million for the third quarter.
One of the things that I think investors were focusing on most was, in the U.S., monthly active users were down 10% year over year even though globally, monthly active users grew by about 1% year over year. But the thing that's interesting that hasn't been focused on as much, I don't feel like, is the amount of revenue that Pinterest continues to generate per active user.
In the most recent quarter, the company reported that its average revenue per user on a global scale was up 37% year over year. In the U.S., that number was up 44% year over year. In international markets, that number was up 81% year over year.
Monthly active users have slowed in certain markets, but how it's monetizing those users is scaling at a really rapid pace. I think the company is probably looking forward to a new year in which it's not making comparisons to its record performance earlier in the pandemic.
I haven't given up on this company yet. I don't own shares at the moment. I've pondered taking a small position as it's trading on sale, because I still believe in the business, and I think it has a lot of potential. But it's definitely been beaten down, for sure. I think in some cases it has been an overreaction, but we've been seeing that a lot over the last few months. So, one to keep an eye on, I think.
