Pinterest (PINS) 8-KPinterest Announces Third Quarter 2024 Results, Delivering Sustained Revenue and User Growth

"We delivered another strong quarter with users reaching another all-time high of 537 million and revenue growth at 18%,” said Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest. “Our AI investments are driving results by powering better personalized experiences and greater performance for advertisers, with our lower-funnel ad tools being the fastest-growing part of our business. Advertisers are increasingly relying on Pinterest to engage our growing audience who see us as a great place to find inspiration, curate and shop.”

The following table summarizes our consolidated financial results (in thousands, except percentages, unaudited):

For Q4 2024, we expect revenue to be in the range of $1,125 million to $1,145 million, representing 15-17% growth year over year. We expect Q4 2024 Non-GAAP operating expenses* to be in the range of $495 million to $510 million, representing 11-14% growth year over year. Please note that our operating expense guidance does not include cost of revenue.

A live audio webcast of our third quarter 2024 earnings release call will be available at investor.pinterestinc.com. The call begins today at 1:30 PM (PT) / 4:30 PM (ET). This press release, including the reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to their nearest comparable GAAP measures and slide presentation are also available. A recording of the webcast will be available at investor.pinterestinc.com for 90 days.

We have used, and intend to continue to use, our investor relations website at investor.pinterestinc.com as a means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts and are often characterized by the use of words such as "potential," "could," "believe," "would," "estimates," "expects," "projects," "may," "will," "can," "intend," "plans," "targets," "forecasts," "anticipates," "continue," "seek," or and similar expressions, or by discussions of strategy, plans or intentions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors that could cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to differ materially from historical results or any future results, performance or achievements expressed, suggested or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, statements about: general economic uncertainty in global markets and a worsening of global economic conditions or low levels of economic growth, including inflation, stress in the banking industry, foreign exchange fluctuations and supply-chain issues; the effect of general economic and political conditions; our financial performance, including revenue, cost and expenses and cash flows; our ability to attract, retain and recover users and maintain and grow their level of engagement; our ability to provide content that is useful and relevant to users' personal taste and interests; our ability to develop successful new products or improve existing ones; our ability to maintain and enhance our brand and reputation; potential harm caused by compromises in security, including our cybersecurity protections and resources and costs required to prevent, detect and remediate potential security breaches; potential harm caused by changes in online application stores or internet search engines' methodologies, particularly search engine optimization methodologies and policies; discontinuation, disruptions or outages in third-party single sign-on access; our ability to compete effectively in our industry; our ability to scale our business, including our monetization efforts; our ability to attract and retain advertisers and scale our revenue model; our ability to attract and retain creators and publishers that create relevant and engaging content; our ability to develop effective products and tools for advertisers, including measurement tools; our ability to expand and monetize our platform internationally; our ability to effectively manage the growth of our business; our ability to continue to use and develop artificial intelligence ("AI") as well as managing the challenges and risks posed by AI; our ability to successfully manage our flexible work model with a more distributed workforce; our lack of operating history and ability to sustain profitability; decisions that reduce short-term revenue or profitability or do not produce the long-term benefits we expect; fluctuations in our operating results; our ability to raise additional capital on favorable terms or at all; our ability to realize anticipated benefits from mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships and other investments; our ability to protect our intellectual property; our ability to receive, process, store, use and share data, and compliance with laws and regulations related to data privacy and content; current or potential litigation and regulatory actions involving us; our ability to comply with modified or new laws and regulations applying to our business, and potential harm to our business as a result of those laws and regulations; real or perceived inaccuracies in metrics related to our business; disruption of, degradation in or interference with our use of Amazon Web Services and our infrastructure; and our ability to attract and retain personnel. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2024, which is available on our investor relations website at investor.pinterestinc.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All information provided in this release and in the earnings materials is as of November 7, 2024. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this press release, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law.

To supplement our condensed consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP"), we use the following non-GAAP financial measures: Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA margin, non-GAAP costs and expenses (including non-GAAP cost of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative), non-GAAP income from operations, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP net income per share and constant currency revenue growth rates. The presentation of these financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation, as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. Investors are cautioned that there are material limitations associated with the use of non-GAAP financial measures as an analytical tool. In addition, these measures may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies, limiting their usefulness for comparative purposes. We compensate for these limitations by providing specific information regarding GAAP amounts excluded from these non-GAAP financial measures.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) adjusted to exclude depreciation and amortization expense, share-based compensation expense, interest income (expense), net, other income (expense), net, provision for (benefit from) income taxes and certain other non-recurring or non-cash items impacting net income (loss) that we do not consider indicative of our ongoing business performance. Adjusted EBITDA margin is calculated by dividing Adjusted EBITDA by revenue. Non-GAAP costs and expenses (including non-GAAP cost of revenue, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative) and non-GAAP net income exclude amortization of acquired intangible assets, share-based compensation expense, legal settlement expense and non-cash charitable contributions. Non-GAAP income from operations is calculated by subtracting non-GAAP costs and expenses from revenue. Non-GAAP net income per share is calculated by dividing non-GAAP net income by diluted weighted-average shares outstanding. We use these measures to evaluate our operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures help identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be masked by the effect of the income and expenses they exclude. We also believe these measures provide useful information about our operating results, enhance the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics we use for financial and operational decision-making. We present these non-GAAP measures to assist potential investors in seeing our operating results through the eyes of management and because we believe these measures provide an additional tool for investors to use in comparing our operating results over multiple periods with other companies in our industry. There are a number of limitations related to the use of non-GAAP financial measures rather than the nearest GAAP equivalents. For example, Adjusted EBITDA excludes certain recurring, non-cash charges such as depreciation of fixed assets and amortization of acquired intangible assets, although these assets may have to be replaced in the future, and share-based compensation expense, which has been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, a significant recurring expense and an important part of our compensation strategy.

For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, please see the tables under "―Reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results" included at the end of this release.

The numbers for our key metrics, which include our MAUs and ARPU, are calculated using internal company data based on the activity of user accounts. We define an MAU as an authenticated Pinterest user who visits our website, opens our mobile application or interacts with Pinterest through one of our browser or site extensions, such as the Save button, at least once during the 30-day period ending on the date of measurement. The number of MAUs does not include Shuffles users unless they would otherwise qualify as MAUs. Unless otherwise indicated, we present MAUs based on the number of MAUs measured on the last day of the current period. We measure monetization of our platform through our ARPU metric. We define ARPU as our total revenue in a given geography during a period divided by the average of the number of MAUs in that geography during the period. We calculate average MAUs based on the average of the number of MAUs measured on the last day of the current period and the last day prior to the beginning of the current period. We calculate ARPU by geography based on our estimate of the geography in which revenue-generating activities occur. We use these metrics to assess the growth and health of the overall business and believe that MAUs and ARPU best reflect our ability to attract, retain, engage and monetize our users, and thereby drive revenue. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage of our products across large online and mobile populations around the world. In addition, we are continually seeking to improve our estimates of our user base, and such estimates may change due to improvements or changes in technology or our methodology.