Pinterest Reaches 150 Million Monthly Users

Pinterest has announced that it has reached 150 million in terms of the volume of monthly active users. This number is definitely an improvement over the 100 million it projected more than a year ago. But as pointed out by a report published by TechCrunch, the 150 million is just short of the 151 million actual target (per leaked documents obtained by TechCrunch).

Pinterest appears to be growing by half in 2016, and it is quite possible that it will not be able to meet its projections that it set back in 2015 for this year. According to last year’s leaked documents, the social media giant was aiming to end this year at 218 million monthly active users. As recently reported by the Wall Street Journal, Pinterest is expected to triple its 2015 earnings to $300 million by the end of this year. The $300 million is well below the $663 million it projected, based on the leaked documents.

It bears noting that companies frequently revise their projections from time to time. Pinterest had set those targets in the early part of 2015. As explained by Ben Silbermann, the chief executive officer of Pinterest, the company made some projections when it was just two months into setting up the business, but according to Silbermann, Pinterest has since grown wiser in setting targets.

Still, earnings of $100 million in 2015 and possibly $300 million by this year’s end are quite impressive numbers, especially when one considers that Pinterest is a startup that is not even a decade old yet. If anything, perhaps the company was a bit too optimistic about its expectations. But by displaying solid continued user growth, healthy user engagement, and an active relationship with advertisers, Pinterest is actually faring well, by any measure.

But in order to make sure its success is sustainable, Pinterest must always look the future, and the road ahead may be filled with obstacles. And things may get tricky for Pinterest because it has never been a normal social media platform, at least when compared to its contemporaries. Facebook is turning into an Internet conqueror, morphing from a purely socializing venue into a hub for news, videos, messaging platforms, and live streams. It is hard for people to look at Pinterest the same way.

So where exactly does Pinterest go from here? As a venue for e-commerce, where Pins are converted to possible sales, that direction does look promising. And this time around, Pinterest may do well to set up more realistic targets to pursue.