- Ticker: PINS (Pinterest, Inc.) – Exchange: NYSE [1]
- Price (Nov 5, 2025): ~$26.8 per share (after Q3 earnings, –18% post-earnings drop [2])
- Recent Movement: Shares plunged ~18% after a Q3 earnings miss and cautious outlook, erasing roughly $4 billion in market value [3]. Despite this pullback, PINS remains up about +13% year-to-date, outperforming Meta’s +7% gain [4].
- Market Cap: Approximately $18 billion (post-drop, down from ~$22B prior to earnings)
- Sector: Communication Services – Industry: Internet Content & Information [5]
Recent News & Market Reaction
Pinterest stock tumbled after its latest earnings release, with shares sinking 18% on Nov. 5 as the company’s weak holiday-quarter outlook spooked investors [6]. The steep drop – the stock’s worst single-day slide in years – came despite strong user growth and solid revenue gains. Pinterest’s management forecast Q4 revenue of $1.31–1.34 billion (14–16% YoY growth), slightly below Wall Street’s ~$1.34B consensus at the midpoint, fueling fears of slowing momentum [7]. This dour guidance, combined with an earnings miss, sparked a broad selloff.
Investors reacted swiftly: the share slump was set to wipe out over $4.3 billion in market value in one day [8]. Still, even after the plunge, Pinterest’s stock is positive in 2025, up roughly +13% year-to-date [9]. That outpaces major peers like Meta Platforms (up about +7% YTD) [10] and is on par with or slightly above the S&P 500’s performance. Over the past one year, PINS has returned about +3.5% [11], roughly flat relative to the broader market, after accounting for recent volatility. The stock had climbed to 52-week highs near $41 over the summer amid optimism about new leadership and products, but it gave back those gains heading into year-end. Recent earnings jitters now have Pinterest trading in the mid-$20s, a level that some analysts see as a potential bargain entry – if the company can reaccelerate growth.
Q3 2025 Earnings Highlights
Pinterest’s third-quarter 2025 results were a mixed bag, featuring healthy growth but falling just shy of investor expectations. Revenue grew +17% year-over-year to $1.049 billion, in line with forecasts [12], while global monthly active users (MAUs) hit an all-time high of 600 million (+12% YoY) [13] [14]. The top-line was driven by strong international expansion – sales in Europe jumped 41% and “Rest of World” regions 66% YoY – even as the core U.S. market grew a modest ~9% [15] [16]. User growth was similarly higher overseas (MAUs up 16% outside the West) whereas U.S./Canada MAUs rose only 4% [17] [18], indicating Pinterest’s future user gains lie largely abroad.
On profitability, adjusted earnings missed estimates. Pinterest reported adjusted EPS of $0.38, below the ~$0.42 expected [19]. GAAP net income was $92 million (up +201% YoY) as the company stayed in the black [20] [21]. Margins are improving: Adjusted EBITDA of $306 million rose 24% YoY, reaching a 29% margin [22] [23]. Free cash flow was a robust $318 million for the quarter [24] [25]. These figures show significant operating leverage, but the earnings shortfall relative to analyst models (due in part to higher costs) dampened enthusiasm. Pinterest’s CFO noted some ad budget softness in the U.S. – larger retailers pulled back spending as they “navigate tariff-related margin pressure,” and Chinese sellers like Shein and Temu cut marketing after U.S. import tariff exemptions ended [26]. This headwind, combined with cautious holiday forecasts, contributed to the earnings miss and conservative Q4 outlook.
Notably, the quarter underscored Pinterest’s improving monetization and engagement metrics. Global average revenue per user (ARPU) ticked up to $1.78 (+5% YoY) [27] [28]. Outbound clicks to advertisers climbed 40%, reflecting better conversion of user activity into shopping actions [29] [30]. CEO Bill Ready highlighted that visual search queries surged 44% year-on-year to 80 billion per month [31] [32] – a sign that users are searching and engaging more on the platform, which bodes well for ad inventory. In Ready’s words, “we had a strong Q3, with 17% revenue growth… Our investments in AI and product innovation are paying off,” as Pinterest has “effectively turned our platform into an AI-powered shopping assistant for 600 million consumers” [33]. The challenge ahead will be translating that engagement and AI-powered personalization into faster revenue and earnings growth without overshooting on costs.
Strategic Initiatives & Business Developments
Pinterest has been in the midst of a strategic transformation under CEO Bill Ready (formerly of Google/PayPal), aiming to evolve from a digital pinboard into a commerce-oriented, “visual discovery” shopping platform. A cornerstone of this strategy is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the user experience. The company has explicitly positioned itself as an “AI-driven shopping assistant,” leveraging visual search and generative AI to anticipate user preferences and make the platform more “actionable” for shopping [34] [35]. In late October, Pinterest rolled out a new conversational AI “Pinterest Assistant” that helps users find products and ideas tailored to their taste, unifying search, personalization and shopping in one tool [36] [37]. This assistant (currently testing voice and multimodal capabilities) can handle prompts like recommending outfits or home decor based on an image or query [38]. Complementing it, Pinterest upgraded its Boards with generative AI features (e.g. “Make It Yours” and “Styled for You”) to suggest personalized ideas and products to users in real time [39] [40]. These product developments underscore Pinterest’s bet that marrying first-party data (user intent signals from searches, saves, etc.) with AI personalization gives it a “distinct right to win” in visual shopping [41].
The company is also doubling down on e-commerce partnerships. Notably, Pinterest entered a multi-year advertising partnership with Amazon (its first ever third-party ad partner) to bring Amazon’s sponsored product ads onto Pinterest’s platform [42]. This collaboration, announced in 2023, aims to connect Pinterest’s high-intent users with Amazon’s vast product catalog, enabling a seamless path from inspiration on Pinterest to purchase on Amazon. By Q3 2025, early fruits of this partnership are evident – users with linked Amazon accounts can now jump from a Pinterest “Product Pin” directly to Amazon’s checkout page in near one-click fashion [43] [44]. This integration effectively lets Pinterest capture “agentic commerce” activity, guiding users through the decision journey and handing off to Amazon to close the sale. For Pinterest, it means access to more brands and shoppable content without managing its own storefront, while Amazon gains another channel to reach shoppers.
Pinterest has also been expanding advertising formats and shopping tools on its own platform. It offers augmented reality try-on for beauty products, shoppable video Idea Pins, and a paid partnership program for creators to collaborate with brands [45]. Ahead of the holiday season, Pinterest launched a “Holiday Edit” campaign featuring hundreds of AI-curated gift guides across categories like home, fashion, beauty and tech [46]. These curated boards mix algorithmic recommendations with human editorial picks, aiming to position Pinterest as a go-to destination for gift inspiration and shopping in Q4. The focus on high-quality content and brand-safe, inspirational environment continues to attract advertisers wary of the controversies on some other social media. In short, Pinterest’s strategic initiatives center on making the user experience more personalized, predictive, and shopping-oriented – transforming the platform from a passive image board into an AI-powered discovery engine that drives commerce. The company is investing heavily in these areas (with operating expenses, especially R&D, growing to support AI infrastructure), confident that this will deepen user engagement and ultimately monetize better.
Analyst Sentiment and Valuation
Despite recent setbacks, Wall Street remains largely bullish on Pinterest’s longer-term prospects. As of this week, 33 analysts rate PINS a “Buy”, 6 Hold, and only 1 Sell, yielding an overall Strong Buy consensus [47]. The average 12-month price target sits around $43–44 per share [48] [49], implying ~30% upside from current levels. Many analysts believe Pinterest’s unique position at the intersection of social media and search commerce could drive above-industry growth. However, the post-earnings disappointment has prompted some near-term caution. In fact, at least two firms downgraded the stock after the Q3 report – for example, Rosenblatt Securities cut PINS to “Neutral” with a $30 target amid the lack of a clear catalyst in coming months [50].
Valuation-wise, Pinterest’s stock now trades at roughly 5.5× trailing sales and ~16× forward earnings, a discount relative to larger peers in the internet sector [51] [52]. Its PEG ratio (price/earnings-to-growth) is around 0.5–0.6 [53], suggesting the market isn’t fully pricing in the ~20% annual earnings growth that analysts forecast over the next five years. By comparison, the S&P 500’s forward P/E is ~17–18× with far lower growth, and even high-growth social media peers often trade at higher multiples (Snap Inc., for instance, is unprofitable but around 4× sales). This relative valuation gap indicates skepticism over Pinterest’s ability to accelerate growth, but it could also present an opportunity if the company delivers on its targets. Morningstar, for example, noted Pinterest is trading well below their fair value estimate and highlighted its improving user monetization and margin expansion potential [54] [55]. With analyst price targets clustering in the $40s [56], the stock’s current ~$27 price reflects a significant margin of safety if Pinterest can reaccelerate revenue or show successful outcomes from its AI and shopping investments.
That said, some experts urge caution. Piper Sandler’s analysts remarked that Pinterest’s recent performance has been “fine, but we struggle to see a catalyst to drive the business and accelerate growth” in the near term [57]. Morgan Stanley echoed this tempered outlook, saying Pinterest “failed to deliver” the kind of upward revisions that tech investors are looking for in today’s market [58]. In other words, while Pinterest’s transformation is promising, the Street wants to see tangible evidence – in the form of beat-and-raise quarters or breakout user monetization gains – before fully buying in. Until then, sentiment could remain mixed: long-term bulls see an undervalued digital commerce play, whereas skeptics worry that competitive and macro pressures may cap Pinterest’s upside.
Competitive Positioning & Industry Outlook
Pinterest occupies a unique niche in the social media and digital ad landscape. Unlike Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, which revolve around social networking or entertainment, Pinterest is fundamentally a “visual discovery” engine where users intentionally seek ideas and inspiration (for recipes, home decor, fashion, events, etc.). This gives Pinterest a more transactional, intent-driven audience – a distinct advantage for advertisers, since users on Pinterest often have purchase intent (planning a project, shopping for an event, etc.) rather than just scrolling for social updates. As CEO Bill Ready put it, “people come to Pinterest with intent… looking for ideas, and our job is to help them take action on that inspiration” [59] [60]. This high-intent use case has allowed Pinterest to carve out a space alongside internet giants: advertisers view it as a “positive corner of the internet” where brands can be discovered in a brand-safe environment, often yielding higher conversion rates for retail and CPG marketers.
Still, Pinterest faces fierce competition on multiple fronts. Digital ad budgets are dominated by Meta Platforms (Facebook/Instagram) and Alphabet (Google), which reported very strong Q3 ad revenues [61], suggesting Pinterest is contending with very successful rivals. Meta’s Instagram and ByteDance’s TikTok have become the preferred choice for many retailers and D2C brands heading into the holidays, given their massive user bases and advanced AI ad targeting [62]. Pinterest must prove it can deliver comparable scale and ROI to win a greater share of advertisers’ budgets. The platform is also competing for user attention against the likes of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, which have endless streams of video content. In response, Pinterest has incorporated more video via Idea Pins and emphasizes that its content is more “evergreen” (users search for ideas that remain relevant over time, versus fleeting viral videos).
Another competitive challenge is user growth saturation in core markets. Pinterest’s U.S. user base (~103 million MAUs) is growing in the low single digits [63], indicating maturity. It is increasingly reliant on growth from international markets (now the majority of users), but monetization abroad remains low – ARPU in Europe is only $1.31 and in the rest of world just $0.21 [64] [65], a tiny fraction of the $7.64 ARPU in North America [66]. This represents a long-term opportunity (huge upside if Pinterest can “catch up” monetization overseas), but also a risk if it fails to localize content and ads effectively. Competitors like Meta have more resources on the ground globally. Pinterest is trying to close this gap by expanding self-serve ad tools internationally and leveraging partners. The overall digital advertising pie is growing at a healthy clip (low-teens % YoY), and Pinterest’s +17% revenue gain shows it’s roughly keeping pace [67] [68]. But to outpace the industry and justify a premium, Pinterest will need to show it can capture a unique slice of that growth – for instance, by dominating the product search niche where it blends search and social.
Industry trends appear generally favorable to Pinterest’s model. E-commerce continues to rise, and advertisers are keen to find high-intent audiences beyond Google search. There’s also a shift toward visual search and AI curation, where Pinterest has a first-mover advantage and strong proprietary data. Moreover, retailers increasingly embrace AI tools – nearly 73% of retailers plan to boost investment in generative AI next year [69] – aligning with Pinterest’s AI Everywhere strategy. If Pinterest can position itself as a leading visual shopping platform at the intersection of search and social, it stands to benefit from these tailwinds. However, it must execute well to fend off copycats; for example, Instagram and TikTok also integrate shopping features and could mimic Pinterest’s discovery tools. Maintaining differentiation (through its massive catalog of 300+ billion Pins and decades of user curation) will be key. In summary, Pinterest’s outlook depends on balancing its niche strength – a planning-oriented, inspiration platform – against the scale and innovation of tech giants. Its success in coming quarters will be a barometer of whether a focused mid-sized platform can thrive alongside the titans by excelling in a specific domain (visual inspiration commerce).
Risks and Investor Considerations
For investors, Pinterest presents both opportunities and risks at this juncture. On the opportunity side, the company is fundamentally stronger than a year or two ago: user growth has resumed after stagnating in 2021, engagement per user is rising, and the business is profitable with expanding margins. Management’s push into AI-driven features and shopping integrations could unlock new revenue streams and higher ad pricing (by demonstrating better conversion). Additionally, Pinterest’s clean balance sheet (minimal debt) and solid cash flow give it flexibility to invest in growth or pursue strategic acquisitions. The current stock price arguably prices in a lot of bad news, as evidenced by the low multiples and the post-earnings selloff, so any upside surprises (e.g. an acceleration to 20%+ revenue growth or margin upside from cost discipline) could lead to outsized stock gains. There’s also the wildcard of strategic interest – Pinterest has been speculated as an acquisition target in the past (e.g. talks with PayPal in 2021). With its ~$18B market cap and unique assets, it’s not inconceivable that a larger tech or e-commerce player could find Pinterest attractive if the stock stays depressed.
However, there are real risks to consider. In the near term, macroeconomic pressures on advertising are a concern – high inflation, interest rates, or a soft consumer spending environment can prompt advertisers to trim budgets, as Pinterest saw with U.S. retail clients facing tariff costs [70]. If the economy slows, smaller platforms like Pinterest often feel the pinch before Google or Meta. Another risk is execution risk in AI and product development: Pinterest is investing heavily in AI infrastructure (which raises costs), and not every new feature will resonate. The company must ensure its AI recommendations remain relevant and don’t alienate users; it even had to introduce controls for users to dial down generative content in feeds to avoid an “AI overload” [71] [72]. Essentially, Pinterest is trying a lot of new things – from a native assistant to new ad formats – and the payoff is uncertain.
Competitive risk looms large as well. Pinterest needs to keep its niche defensible. If a giant like Google improved its image search shopping features or if Meta’s platforms replicate Pinterest’s functionality (for example, Instagram’s Explore becoming more Pinterest-like), it could siphon away users or advertisers. Pinterest’s relatively smaller size (under $4.1B annual revenue run-rate) means it has less margin for error in this competitive arms race. There’s also the question of user demographic shifts – Pinterest historically has a strong female user base and popularity in categories like weddings, food, and DIY. It’s been working to broaden its appeal (notably, over 50% of new sign-ups are now Gen Z men or women [73]). If it fails to capture the younger generation’s attention in the face of TikTok, long-term growth could stall.
Lastly, investors should watch for management execution and any activist involvement. The entrance of activist investor Elliott Management in 2022 (with a substantial stake) put pressure on Pinterest to improve profitability and growth. So far, the changes – including a new CEO and sharper focus on monetization – have been positive. But if results falter, Elliott or others could agitate for more drastic moves. On the flip side, strong execution (hitting or exceeding Pinterest’s own targets of low-teens+ growth and 30%+ long-term EBITDA margins [74] [75]) would likely restore confidence and support a higher valuation.
Bottom Line: Pinterest, Inc. is navigating a pivotal transition from social media underdog to a leading AI-powered shopping platform. The stock’s recent plunge reflects doubts about near-term growth, but the company’s record user base and ongoing strategic pivots underscore its potential. Investors should weigh Pinterest’s improving fundamentals and unique market position against the competitive and macro risks. With Wall Street’s consensus still optimistic (targets in the $40s [76]) and the stock now trading at a relative discount, Pinterest’s next few quarters – especially the crucial holiday season – will be critical in determining whether this pinboard-turned-shopping-assistant can deliver on its promise and reward patient investors.
Sources: Pinterest Investor Relations; Business Wire press release; Reuters [77] [78]; Yahoo Finance; Investing.com [79] [80]; PYMNTS [81] [82]; StockAnalysis; Finviz [83].
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. stockanalysis.com, 3. www.investing.com, 4. www.investing.com, 5. stockanalysis.com, 6. www.investing.com, 7. www.investing.com, 8. www.investing.com, 9. finviz.com, 10. www.investing.com, 11. finviz.com, 12. www.investing.com, 13. www.businesswire.com, 14. www.businesswire.com, 15. www.businesswire.com, 16. www.businesswire.com, 17. www.businesswire.com, 18. www.businesswire.com, 19. www.investing.com, 20. www.businesswire.com, 21. www.businesswire.com, 22. www.businesswire.com, 23. www.businesswire.com, 24. www.businesswire.com, 25. www.businesswire.com, 26. www.investing.com, 27. www.businesswire.com, 28. www.businesswire.com, 29. www.pymnts.com, 30. www.pymnts.com, 31. www.pymnts.com, 32. www.pymnts.com, 33. www.businesswire.com, 34. www.pymnts.com, 35. www.pymnts.com, 36. www.pymnts.com, 37. www.pymnts.com, 38. www.pymnts.com, 39. www.pymnts.com, 40. www.pymnts.com, 41. www.pymnts.com, 42. newsroom.pinterest.com, 43. www.pymnts.com, 44. www.pymnts.com, 45. digiday.com, 46. www.pymnts.com, 47. www.investing.com, 48. www.investing.com, 49. stockanalysis.com, 50. finviz.com, 51. www.investing.com, 52. www.investing.com, 53. finviz.com, 54. www.investing.com, 55. www.investing.com, 56. www.investing.com, 57. www.investing.com, 58. www.investing.com, 59. www.pymnts.com, 60. www.pymnts.com, 61. www.investing.com, 62. www.investing.com, 63. www.businesswire.com, 64. www.businesswire.com, 65. www.businesswire.com, 66. www.businesswire.com, 67. www.businesswire.com, 68. www.businesswire.com, 69. www.pymnts.com, 70. www.investing.com, 71. newsroom.pinterest.com, 72. uk.finance.yahoo.com, 73. www.zacks.com, 74. www.investing.com, 75. www.investing.com, 76. www.investing.com, 77. www.investing.com, 78. www.investing.com, 79. www.investing.com, 80. www.investing.com, 81. www.pymnts.com, 82. www.pymnts.com, 83. finviz.com
