Pinterest plunges as tariffs weigh on large customers' ad spending

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Pinterest shares plummeted implicit 20% successful premarket trading connected Friday aft the image-sharing level said its quarterly ‌revenue forecast was deed by ample U.S. retailers scaling backmost advertisement ‌spending owed to tariff-induced uncertainty.

The institution past period chopped nether 15% of its workforce, ​a restructuring that CFO Julia Donnelly said could disrupt near-term performance, arsenic Pinterest rebuilds its go‑to‑market teams. The informing added to unit connected a concern already squeezed by softer retail advertising.

Meta successful January highlighted beardown momentum successful ‌e‑commerce advertising, portion TikTok ⁠survived successful the U.S. aft facing ineligible and governmental pressure. OpenAI, meanwhile, has entered the fray with advertisement slots ⁠on ChatGPT successful the U.S., widening the tract of players vying for the aforesaid selling budgets.

Pinterest's banal is connected way to unfastened astatine its ​lowest since ​April 2020.

Google has stepped up its ​commerce propulsion with shopping-focused updates ‌to its Gemini chatbot and AI search, tightening Big Tech's grip connected integer ads arsenic smaller players specified arsenic Pinterest look a tougher backdrop.

"We'll astir apt spot AI-powered Pinterest clones from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon soon," Bernstein analysts said successful a note.

At slightest 16 brokerages chopped their terms targets ‌on Pinterest's stock, which was acceptable ​to suffer much than $2 cardinal from its ​market worth of $12.52 cardinal if ​the premarket losses hold.

The institution trades astatine 9.49 times ‌the estimates of its net for ​the adjacent 12 ​months, compared with 9.42 for Snap, 29.99 for Reddit and 21.41 for Meta.

Last year, Pinterest said it would bargain adtech steadfast tvScientific, ​as the societal media ‌company expands into TV advertisement inventory for its halfway user ​goods and retail advertisers.

(Reporting by Kritika Lamba and Jaspreet Singh ​in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)