The stock market hasn't exactly been kind to growth companies recently, with many stocks down big from their all-time highs. Pinterest (PINS 0.81%) has been one of the hardest-hit stocks in the downturn and is now 70% below its 2021 high. In this Fool Live video clip, recorded on Jan. 24, Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel discusses why Pinterest is one of his favorite stocks to buy and hold for the long term, especially at these prices.
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Matt Frankel: Probably my favorite social media stock overall. Just to give you an idea how beaten down Pinterest is, this is down 70% from the high. Pinterest could 10x from here and be worth less than one-fourth of what Facebook is worth today. That's how small this is trading for.
There's a reason, Pinterest was not doing that well stock-price-wise before this recent correction and here's why. I'll just go over this briefly because we're getting a little short on time. Pinterest active user base, I might not have mentioned Nextdoor's active user base is up 20% year over year. Pinterest is up 1%. Their active user base contracted when the world started to return to normal.
During the height of the pandemic with the lockdowns and things like that. People had nothing else to do but renovate their homes, find books to read, look at lists of great movies and watch them all. There is no better source for that information than Pinterest. Pinterest's user base got a big boost when the pandemic hit. As things started to return to normal, people who were using it actively during the pandemic are not so much anymore. You can actually see the user base peaked at 478 million in the first quarter of 2021, and it has since lost a little over 30 million people. As of the third quarter was at 444 million.
About 80% of Pinterest users are international, which is really important for the next reason and this is why I still love the stock. This is the monetization, which is what I said Nextdoor needs to learn how to do. Their average revenue per user is up 37% year over year to about $1.41, which is roughly what Nextdoor is doing. Their average U.S. user generated $5.55 in the last quarter. Their average international user brings at about 7% of that, about $0.38 in the last quarter. There is a huge opportunity to narrow the gap between their domestic and international users.
Remember, international users make up 80% of the user base. There's a lot of opportunity to replicate their success in the U.S. with monetization overseas and if they could do that, the user base can stagnate for a while. If they continue to grow their monetization like that, the average international use of the revenues of 81% year-over-year. If they can keep doing that, I really don't care how fast the user base is growing. I still love Pinterest, especially at the current valuation. It's down, like I said, about 70% from the highs. It's going to take a little while for the post-COVID user base normalization to happen. But the monetization is moving in the right direction and that's really why I am such a fan at this level.
