• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

In its latest performance report, Pinterest boosted revenue and increased its Gen Z user base. Despite a reliance on North American revenue, the company’s leaders expressed confidence in the platform’s role as an evolving “personalized shopping destination” for consumers and advertisers.

Pinterest added 8 million new monthly active users this past quarter, growing its global user base 11% to 578 million MAUs total, reporting that its Gen Z audience now makes up half of its entire user base. This poses an opportunity for marketers who are trying to appeal to younger consumers.

Like Snapchat, however, Pinterest’s user growth is taking place in the “Rest of the World” category, while user engagement remained stagnant in North America and fell by 2 million users in Europe – two markets that generate the majority of the company’s overall revenue.

Across the U.S. and Canada, Pinterest made over 38x more per user in Q2 than on consumers in the “Rest of the World” category, marking a potential concern for future revenue growth.

Overall, the social media platform and visual discovery platform brought in $998 million for the quarter, falling just shy of its first billion-dollar quarter in February, but showing a strong 17% increase over the same period last year.

The company’s double-digits revenue increase showcases Pinterest’s focus on how to successfully monetize its audience.

Over the past year, Pinterest has invested heavily in expanding its online shopping business, launching AI-powered collages, enhanced visual search features, and improved Pin recommendations to help assist consumers on their path to purchase. 

According to a Q2 analysis from investment firm Raymond James, Pinterest’s AI model for visual search is 30% more likely to identify relevant content than other models, which aligns with the platform’s intent-driven users.

As for the company’s ad business, Pinterest has seen improvements within its AI-powered ad tools. Raymond James’ analysis shows that the percentage of lower-funnel revenue flowing through Performance+ has more than doubled since its launch, while new features, such as Customer Groups, are providing advertisers with more reliable data functionality.