Pinterest currently expects to boost advertising revenue by 50% this year, to $700 million, according to the New York Times. The 2018 revenue estimate is more than $100 million lower than what the company had forecast, as of the end of last year, based on a earlier report by The Information. Nevertheless, the ad revenue growth, coupled with the fact that Pinterest isn’t losing as much money as Twitter and Snap did when they went public, means the company looks attractive by comparison and its $12.3 billion private valuation might make sense.
The new figure also means Pinterest is expected to generate around $2.80 in ad revenue per monthly active user this year, which is far lower than its ad-selling peers. Perhaps Pinterest could argue it has a lot more wiggle room to generate money from its existing users. The article points out that CEO Ben Silbermann is an unlikely figure at a Silicon Valley consumer tech powerhouse: more thoughtful and slower to act—which may have caused a slew of executives to leave in recent years—but showing how a more-focused, play-it-safe mentality can succeed too.