People all around the world seem to have concluded that things may never go back to being the way they used to be. The COVID-19 pandemic is probably going to hang around for a long time. That probably explains why a platform like Pinterest that benefited largely from online shopping at the peak of the pandemic is now beginning to experience a decline in patronage.
Once again, Pinterest’s monthly active user count is experiencing a downward spiral for the third consecutive quarter. A report that covered Pinterest’s performance in Q4 2021, showed that it is the third consecutive time this is happening.
The chart below shows that Pinterest’s monthly active user count dropped from 478 million at the start of 2021, to 431 million in the current quarter. This shows a decline of 47 million active users throughout 2021.
While Pinterest is one of the most visited social media platforms online, the fact that it lost a whopping 47 million users in Q4 is something to worry about. Of course, people are beginning to look elsewhere for their shopping since most countries have relaxed their lockdown rules, losing 47 million users is a huge cause for worry. What this means is that Pinterest is not able to keep hold of its users; though it has been adding some new products and features lately.
In the quarter before the last, Pinterest’s MAU dropped to 444 million in Q3, down by 10 million on the previous reporting period. In Q2, the numbers were down 24 million MAUs before that. The social media platform lost some 34 million active users overall after a steady growth stretching two periods.
People did virtually all their shopping online at the peak of the COVID outbreak. Pinterest has a lot of products that focus more on ecommerce, and this attracted millions of shoppers to the platform at the peak of the pandemic. With the gradual reopening of physical stores, people are having fun doing their shopping offline.
At the peak of the pandemic, Pinterest added over 100 million active users. That period marked a great achievement for the company as it touted itself as a virtual shopping mall. Of course, reality is beginning to set in as the physical stores begin to reopen for business.
“As lockdowns eased, people have embraced life outside their homes, a trend that caused a dramatic decline of our year-over year growth rate of monthly active users (MAUs) in Q2 and Q3, as consumer preferences shifted away from our core at-home use cases,” Pinterest said at the time.
