Pinterest AI Powers Record $1.18B Revenue as Competition Intensifies and Q3 Growth Slows

Pinterest expects slower quarterly revenue growth as ad competition heats up

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Image-sharing platform Pinterest (PINS.N), opens new tab forecast slower revenue growth for the third quarter on Tuesday, signaling intense competition for digital advertising from bigger players including Meta's Instagram. Pinterest has been expanding Performance+, its AI-powered suite for advertisers, to attract more marketers by helping them optimize and scale their campaigns with less manual effort. As Meta (META.O), opens new tab continues to improve its Advantage+ ad automation tools, Reddit (RDDT.N), opens new tab launched a broadly similar product and with ads becoming ⁠a larger focus for OpenAI, competition is expected to increase further. Last month, Google revamped Google Images with AI-powered personalized feeds and visual discovery features resembling Pinterest, indicating a broader push for AI-driven search and shopping by the search-engine giant. Pinterest expects its current-quarter revenue to be in the range of $1.19 billion to $1.21 billion, representing a 13% to 15% growth, compared with analysts' average estimate of $1.20 billion, according to data ⁠compiled by LSEG. That is slower than the 18% revenue growth in its second-quarter. It reported $1.18 billion in revenue for the three months ended June 30, beating estimates of $1.15 billion. "AI is at the heart of our momentum ⁠and is a clear accelerant for our business," CEO Bill Ready said. Its global monthly active users rose 11% to 640 million in the second quarter ⁠from a year ago, while average revenue per user rose 7% to $1.86. Earlier this year, the company completed its acquisition of tvScientific, ⁠a move aimed at extending advertisers' reach beyond social media and into connected TV and giving Pinterest a broader pool of ad budgets. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Pinterest Posts Better-Than-Expected Q2 Earnings: AI Is 'Clear Accelerant' - Pinterest (NYSE:PINS)

* Pinterest shares are in the spotlight. What's driving PINS stock higher? Pinterest Q2 Earnings Details Pinterest reported second-quarter revenue of $1.18 billion, beating analyst estimates of $1.15 billion, according to Benzinga Pro. The idea discovery platform company reported adjusted earnings of 43 cents per share, topping estimates of 36 cents per share. Total revenue was up 18% on a year-over-year basis as Pinterest's global monthly active users increased 11% year-over-year to 640 million. Average revenue per user in the quarter was $1.86 globally and $8.30 in the U.S. and Canada. Net cash from operations totaled $293 million in the quarter, and free cash flow came in at $270 million. The company exited the period with approximately $422.48 million in cash and cash equivalents. "AI is at the heart of our momentum and is a clear accelerant for our business. It is trained on our unique human curation of style and taste, making Pinterest more personalized and actionable for users, while improving performance for advertisers and creating more opportunities to monetize over the long term," said Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest. Pinterest sees third-quarter revenue in the range of $1.19 billion to $1.21 billion, versus estimates of $1.20 billion. The company anticipates adjusted EBITDA of $335 million to $355 million in the third quarter, versus $311 million in the second quarter. Pinterest executives are currently discussing the company's guidance and more on an earnings call that started at 4:30 p.m. ET. PINS Stock Slides After Earnings PINS Price Action: Pinterest shares were down 7.74% in Tuesday's after-hours session, trading at $ 23.60 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro. Image: Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Pinterest's AI Push Pays Off in Record Users and Revenue | PYMNTS.com

Revenue topped $1 billion for the fourth straight quarter, and monthly active users hit a record high, the 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit user growth. The company points to its AI conversational assistant, expanded to most U.S. users in July, as the mechanism behind the acceleration. Pinterest has spent three years turning itself into what CEO Bill Ready calls an AI-powered shopping assistant. Every pin a user sees now runs through a recommendation model trained on that user's saves, searches and boards. The newest layer targets a different part of the shopping journey: the research phase, when someone has an idea but not yet a decision. More than 96% of Pinterest's text-based searches are unbranded, phrases like "cool running shoes" rather than a specific product name. That's the gap Pinterest is building AI to close, and the company's results this quarter show the strategy translating into revenue. AI as the Shopping and Advertising Layer Pinterest Assistant lets users move from an idea to a finished plan without leaving the app. Someone planning a living room refresh can ask what styles fit their space, get help finding a rug and see how to combine pieces within a budget, all inside one conversation. The assistant draws on years of visual curation data that Ready says gives Pinterest an edge closed models can't replicate. The company builds its AI around cost as much as capability. Pinterest post-trains open-source models on its own user data rather than defaulting to closed proprietary models from outside vendors. Ready said that approach delivers better shopping recommendations for Pinterest's specific use cases while cutting costs sharply. "With open models, we are achieving cost per transaction at less than 8% of the cost of comparable closed proprietary models," Ready told analysts on the call. He said the savings give Pinterest room to expand the assistant without matching spending to closed model pricing. The same AI investment reshaped Pinterest's ad platform. Performance Plus, the company's automated campaign tool, now carries roughly 30% of Pinterest's lower funnel ad revenue. Advertisers using bidding within that product saw a 28% improvement in return on ad spend during testing this quarter, driven by updates to Pinterest's shopping ad delivery models. Pinterest's core U.S. and Canada market accelerated five points sequentially to 18% revenue growth, the fastest pace in that region this year. The gain came from AI-driven bidding improvements that pulled in more large retailer spend, along with rising participation from mid-market and small business advertisers using automated shopping campaigns. Retail remained Pinterest's largest advertising vertical, with smaller but faster-growing categories including financial services, travel and health adding to the shopping mix. Ad pricing rose just 1% year over year, while impressions grew 16%, a deceleration the company attributed to lapping heavier volume in previously undermonetized international markets. What Else Stood Out * Pinterest is piloting integrations between advertisers' own measurement systems and its AI bidding engine, letting a small group of large advertisers optimize toward outcomes like customer lifetime value instead of last click attribution. * TV Scientific, Pinterest's connected television ad product, will fully integrate into Performance Plus in 2027, extending shopping ad targeting into search, social and CTV in one buying interface. * Weekly pull requests per engineer rose 45% year over year in July as Pinterest expanded internal AI tools for software development, without a corresponding rise in incident rates. * Gen Z now makes up more than half of Pinterest's user base, and Ready pointed to third-party research showing 39% of that cohort already treats Pinterest as a first stop for search. Topline Growth and Future Outlook Pinterest reported second quarter revenue of $1.18 billion, up 18% year over year, or 17% on a constant currency basis. U.S. and Canada revenue reached $880 million, up 18%. Free cash flow reached $270 million for the quarter, bringing trailing 12 month free cash flow to nearly $1.3 billion, a 94% conversion rate. Pinterest repurchased $58 million in shares during the quarter and has bought back more than $2 billion year to date. The company ended the period with $1.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. For the third quarter, the company guided revenue of $1.19 billion to $1.21 billion, representing 13% to 15% growth.

Pinterest Q2 2026 slides: AI drives growth, UCAN accelerates By Investing.com

Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) presented its second-quarter 2026 earnings results on August 4, 2026, showcasing stronger-than-expected performance driven by artificial intelligence innovations and accelerating growth in its core U.S. and Canada market. The company reported revenue of $1.18 billion, up 18% year-over-year, while monthly active users reached a record 640 million for the 12th consecutive quarter. Despite beating analyst estimates on both revenue and adjusted earnings, Pinterest shares fell 8.33% in after-hours trading to $23.45, following a 5.88% gain during the regular session to close at $25.58. The mixed market reaction suggests investors welcomed the quarterly beat but remained cautious about cost trends and the pace of international growth. Quarterly Performance Highlights As detailed in the company's earnings presentation, Pinterest delivered robust second-quarter results across multiple metrics. Revenue of $1.18 billion represented 18% year-over-year growth, or 17% on a constant currency basis, marking the fourth consecutive quarter above $1 billion. The company's most significant achievement was the reacceleration of its U.S. and Canada business, which grew 18% year-over-year to $880 million -- a five-percentage-point acceleration from the first quarter. This improvement reflected better ad performance, enhanced bidding tools, and a more disciplined sales approach, according to management. As shown in the following quarterly revenue breakdown by geography, Pinterest demonstrated strong performance in its largest market while maintaining solid growth internationally. Europe revenue increased 12% year-over-year to $213 million, while Rest of World revenue surged 38% to $87 million. The company noted that Europe faced tougher comparisons and was undergoing deliberate leadership and go-to-market strategy changes. User growth remained healthy across all regions, with global monthly active users reaching 640 million, up 11% from the prior year. The company emphasized that 100% of reported users are logged in, and that Gen Z now represents over half of the user base as the platform's largest and fastest-growing demographic cohort. The following chart illustrates the user growth trajectory across geographic regions over the past year. Average revenue per user metrics showed varied performance by region. Global ARPU reached $1.86 in Q2 2026, up 7% year-over-year. U.S. and Canada ARPU grew 14% to $8.30, while Europe ARPU increased 4% to $1.35. Rest of World ARPU climbed 21% to $0.23, reflecting the early-stage monetization opportunity in emerging markets. AI-Powered Growth Strategy Pinterest positioned artificial intelligence as central to its growth strategy, highlighting two major initiatives in its Q2 2026 presentation. The company introduced Pinterest Assistant, an AI conversational layer now available to the vast majority of U.S. users, designed to help users move from inspiration to decision-making. The Assistant leverages open-source models trained on Pinterest's proprietary Taste Graph, which is informed by over 80 billion monthly searches and 16 billion boards created by users. The feature provides visual-first recommendations, product comparisons, and actionable advice tailored to individual user preferences. The following product demonstration illustrates how Pinterest Assistant guides users through the shopping journey with contextual recommendations and decision support. On the advertising side, Pinterest continued expanding its Performance+ platform, which drives automation and performance for advertisers. The company is scaling AI bidding pilots to additional advertisers in Q3 2026 and broadening access to Smart Assembly for creative optimization. The multi-year product roadmap for Performance+ demonstrates Pinterest's commitment to enhancing advertiser return on ad spend through improved measurement, bidding capabilities, and targeting features. Management indicated that the platform's human curation creates unique signals that help train AI systems, potentially providing a competitive advantage in recommendation quality. CEO Bill Ready noted that while Pinterest has "5x'd the number of clicks to advertisers over the last three-year period," the company "still didn't 5x the revenue," suggesting significant room to improve monetization of user activity. Profitability & Cash Flow Expansion Pinterest demonstrated strong profitability improvement in Q2 2026, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $311 million and a 26% margin, representing 130 basis points of year-over-year expansion. The company raised its full-year adjusted EBITDA margin outlook to approximately 30%, up from the prior target of 29%, citing first-half outperformance. The following chart shows the consistent trajectory of profitability expansion over the past several quarters. On a trailing twelve-month basis, Pinterest achieved a 30% adjusted EBITDA margin, demonstrating sustained profitability as the business scales. This margin expansion occurred despite significant investments in AI infrastructure and product development. Cash flow generation remained robust, with free cash flow of $270 million in Q2 2026 and $1.3 billion on a trailing twelve-month basis, representing 94% conversion of adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow. This strong cash generation supported aggressive capital return to shareholders. Pinterest returned over $2 billion to shareholders through share repurchases year-to-date, representing 111 million shares. The company also entered into capped call transactions to raise the effective dilution breakpoint on its convertible notes to $30.59 per share, managing potential shareholder dilution. However, cost trends presented some challenges. Cost of revenue increased 25% year-over-year, partly due to GPU investments and the tvScientific acquisition. Stock-based compensation in Q2 2026 was the highest quarter of the year at $319.7 million, though management indicated this should represent the peak for 2026. The following breakdown of non-GAAP costs and expenses shows the investment areas driving growth. Consistent Growth Trajectory Pinterest's presentation emphasized the consistency of its performance since 2023, with both user growth and revenue growth maintaining healthy rates while profitability expanded significantly. The following chart demonstrates the sustained momentum across key metrics over the past three years. Monthly active user growth has remained in the 10-12% range since early 2023, while revenue growth has consistently outpaced user growth, reflecting improving monetization. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded from 15% in early 2023 to 30% by the end of 2024, where it has stabilized through Q2 2026. This combination of double-digit user growth, mid-to-high-teens revenue growth, and expanding margins demonstrates Pinterest's ability to scale its business model efficiently while investing in long-term growth initiatives. Forward-Looking Statements For the third quarter of 2026, Pinterest guided revenue to $1.19 billion to $1.21 billion, representing 13-15% year-over-year growth. The company also projected adjusted EBITDA of $335 million to $355 million for Q3. Management noted several factors that could affect third-quarter results, including a modest foreign exchange headwind, a shift in Prime Day spending timing, and a World Cup comparison that will not repeat from the prior year. The company indicated that the high end of the Q3 revenue guidance range is broadly consistent with Q2 growth rates when adjusted for these factors. For full-year 2026, Pinterest raised its adjusted EBITDA margin outlook to approximately 30% from the prior target of 29%, reflecting strong first-half performance. The company also expects to achieve profitability on a full-year GAAP basis. Longer-term priorities outlined in the presentation include wider rollout of Pinterest Assistant, increased adoption of Performance+ campaigns, better integration of advertiser measurement systems with AI bidding, full integration of tvScientific capabilities into Pinterest Performance Plus by 2027, and continued international go-to-market improvements. CFO Julia Donnelly emphasized the strength of the core U.S. and Canada market, stating that "user and engagement trends continue to support the business." CEO Bill Ready positioned Pinterest as an "AI-powered shopping destination" with unique advantages from its proprietary Taste Graph and human-curated content. The company faces several challenges ahead, including rising infrastructure costs from GPU investments, elevated stock-based compensation, regional weakness in Europe, and the need to continue improving monetization to match user engagement growth. However, with a strong balance sheet holding $1.3 billion in cash and marketable securities, robust free cash flow generation, and a clear AI-driven product roadmap, Pinterest appears positioned to navigate these challenges while pursuing its growth objectives. Full presentation: This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.