Pinterest launches featured collections as international growth soars
Pinterest is growing like crazy.
The company, which passed 100 million users last fall, now says most of its users are from outside of the United States -- a significant milestone for the San Francisco-based startup. Now, the company is launching featured collections -- curated collections of trending topics localized to the UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Japan -- to further entice its international users.
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The collections, which are chosen by Pinterest editors, brands and other "tastemakers" are meant to help people find relevant content in their language. Each featured collection will be made up of pins, boards, searches and pinners that are trending in their region.
Pinterest users in the UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Japan can find featured collections in the app's explore section. The company plans to roll them out to more countries in the next few months.
For Pinterest, the new feature highlights just how important international markets are as it looks to grow. If the startup hopes to start selling ads in new markets, then it will need to attract more users outside of the United States, where the company currently sells most of its ads. Pinterest began a big push earlier this month to ramp up its advertising in the UK and plans to open its ad business to Canada, Australia and Ireland later this year, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Pinterest said in a blog post Wednesday that Germany, Brazil, France and Japan are among the fastest growing countries for the company so it's not surprising they would choose to bring featured collections to those markets first. (Russia, South Korea and Mexico are also seeing "significant growth," according to the company.)
Pinterest didn't provide a specific breakdown of how many of its 100 million users are located outside on the United State but noted that international expansion has been "our most important challenge since transitioning from desktop to mobile in 2012."
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Topics Pinterest
Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
