Reuters/Brendan McDermid
- Pinterest officially began trading on the public markets on Thursday with a valuation of $10 billion.
- Ahead of its IPO, the social platform has emerged in the first quarter of 2019 as one of the 20 most downloaded non-gaming apps in the US, according to mobile data provider Sensor Tower.
- Pinterest added 32.5 million new mobile users globally in the first quarter, which shows the app is continuing to accelerate its growth since last year.
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Pinterest’s IPO appears to have raised more than just money.
In the months leading up to Pinterest’s trading debut on Thursday, the social media app saw a surge in users that propelled it to the top of the download charts.
Pinterest was one of the 20 most downloaded apps in the the U.S. in the first quarter of 2019, according to numbers from mobile data analyst Sensor Tower.
These first quarter results mark the end of Pinterest’ yearlong hiatus from the list of most-downloaded non-game apps. The social platform’s number of downloads flatlined in 2018, but it was able to recover in the beginning months of the 2019 fiscal year. Sensor Tower estimates Pinterest was installed by 32.5 million new users on iOS and Android devices around the world in the first quarter, a 16% increase from Pinterest’s numbers in the beginning of the 2018 fiscal year.
Pinterest’s growing audience mirrors other numbers the company has produced. According to its S-1 filings, Pinterest generated $755.9 million in revenue in 2018, up 60% from $472.9 million in 2017. Additionally, Pinterest cut down on its losses: it lost $63 million in 2018, down from $130 million the previous year.
In its first day of trading, Pinterest’s shares opened 25% higher than where the company priced its IPO. The company started trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "PINS."
The company has been emphasizing to investors how it differentiates itself from Snap, a rival social platform whose valuation has shrunk drastically since it went public in 2017. Now, Pinterest and CEO Ben Silbermann are trying to position the company as a "visual discovery tool" instead of a social media platform.
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See Also:
- Pinterest prices IPO at $19 per share, giving it a $10 billion valuation — lower than its $12.3 billion private valuation
- The average Pinterest employee has $700,000 in equity according to a report which warns of disruption if the IPO is volatile
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Source: Business Insider – pleskin@businessinsider.com (Paige Leskin)