Pinterest posts first full-year profit and reaches more than $2 billion in sales in 2021, sending stock soaring

Chief Executive Ben Silbermann said the company will double down on its new initiatives, which helped its fourth-quarter revenue grow 20% year over year and full-year revenue climb 52% year from the previous year.

“We plan to further invest in our business as we scale the distribution of Idea Pins through our creator-led content efforts and enhance our core Pinner experience and shopping,” he said in a statement.

Despite the milestones, the online-pinboard company said its fourth-quarter global monthly active users declined 6% year over year, to 431 million, short of the 446 million analysts expected. There was a 12% drop in U.S. users, to 86 million, and a 4% drop in international users, to 346 million. Pinterest attributed the declines to lower traffic from search and continued effects of the waning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fourth-quarter results beat expectations, though. Revenue rose to $846.7 million from $705.6 million in the year-ago quarter. Fourth-quarter net income was $174.7 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with $207.8 million, or 43 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for stock-based compensation and other costs, earnings were 49 cents a share.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of 45 cents a share on revenue of $827.5 million.

For the full year, Pinterest reported net income of $316.4 million, or 46 cents a share, its first GAAP profit. It had revenue of $2.58 billion. Adjusted earnings were $1.13 a share, beating analysts’ expectation of $1.10 a share on revenue of $2.56 billion.

The company did not give a specific first-quarter forecast, but Chief Financial Officer Todd Morgenfeld was cautiously optimistic on the earnings call and said he expected first-quarter year-over-year revenue growth in the “high teens.”

Shares of Pinterest are down nearly 25% so far this year, compared with the S&P 500 Index SPX, which has declined about 6% year to date. The company’s stock has been weighed down partly by news of several recent senior-executive departures. Silbermann said on the earnings call that the pandemic has brought about a “reshuffling”; that some of the executives who left have been with the company since before it went public; and that he was “excited” for them to move on to other opportunities.