Pinterest reports 25% increase in monthly active users

Two hundred and fifty million people are using Pinterest every month, up from 200 million last September, according to new numbers the company shared this morning. The visual search giant is also reporting that more than half of its users and 80 percent of new sign-ups come from outside the U.S.

“Pins,” or items saved to the site, are growing, too. There are now 175 billion of them, a 75 percent increase YoY.

To facilitate that growth, Pinterest has been on a hiring spree. It now has more than 1,500 employees, a 32 percent increase from last year.

The company has secured more than $1 billion in venture capital funding, most recently raising $150 million at a $12.3 billion valuation. Many expected it would make its highly anticipated public debut in early 2018, but that ship has sailed at this point. Now, reports indicate Pinterest is looking at a mid-2019 IPO and expects to reach $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time.

Those numbers should help it garner support on Wall Street, as will this nugget: The part of Pinterest that includes items for purchase on retailer sites is the fastest growing part of the platform, up 115 percent in the last year. The company’s key sell to VCs has been that its visual search tool converts users to buyers, but with Instagram going full speed ahead as an e-commerce platform, it will take data points like that one to convince investors it’s worthy of that $12.3 billion valuation.

Pinterest has been busy expanding as it presumably gears up for an IPO. In March, it introduced the following tab, where users could view only the content from brands and people they follow. It also added the Pinterest Propel program as part of an effort to create more local content for its users. And it implemented full-screen video ads to beef up its advertising options — an area where it competes directly with Facebook and Google.