Feb 13 (Reuters) - Pinterest shares plummeted over 20% in premarket trading on Friday after the image-sharing platform said its quarterly revenue forecast was hit by large U.S. retailers scaling back ad spending due to tariff-induced uncertainty.
The company last month cut under 15% of its workforce, a restructuring that CFO Julia Donnelly said could disrupt near-term performance, as Pinterest rebuilds its go‑to‑market teams. The warning added to pressure on a business already squeezed by softer retail advertising.
Meta in January highlighted strong momentum in e‑commerce advertising, while TikTok survived in the U.S. after facing legal and political pressure. OpenAI, meanwhile, has entered the fray with ad slots on ChatGPT in the U.S., widening the field of players vying for the same marketing budgets.
Pinterest's stock is on track to open at its lowest since April 2020.
Google has stepped up its commerce push with shopping-focused updates to its Gemini chatbot and AI search, tightening Big Tech's grip on digital ads as smaller players such as Pinterest face a tougher backdrop.
"We'll probably see AI-powered Pinterest clones from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon soon," Bernstein analysts said in a note.
At least 16 brokerages cut their price targets on Pinterest's stock, which was set to lose more than $2 billion from its market value of $12.52 billion if the premarket losses hold.
The company trades at 9.49 times the estimates of its earnings for the next 12 months, compared with 9.42 for Snap, 29.99 for Reddit and 21.41 for Meta.
Last year, Pinterest said it would buy adtech firm tvScientific, as the social media company expands into TV ad inventory for its core consumer goods and retail advertisers.
(Reporting by Kritika Lamba and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
