Is Microsoft Acquiring Pinterest?

microsoft

Pratiksha Bajikar

Feb 12, 2021 — 4 min read

Satya Nadella’s Microsoft made headlines when it intended to take over the American image-sharing social media service Pinterest for $51 million dollars, the Financial Times reported. Apparently this acquisition has reportedly stalled.

Previously, Microsoft had been looking forward to buying the US operations of the Chinese media app TikTok. But the deal banged as Walmart and Oracle secured the deal. However, Walmart and Oracle might push back while President Joe Biden looks over new regulations relating to security threats posed by the Chinese apps.

Microsoft’s interest in Pinterest

Pinterest is a social media service that enables you to save and discover trends and ideas in the form of pin boards. This information could be in the form of short videos, images and GIFs. It boasts about hosting 400 million users in a month. Women were their pioneer users and now 50% of their users are millennials. Although starting out as a “social media'' platform that uses boards, the company has been putting continuous efforts in visual search and e-commerce such as online shopping catalogues.

The deal with Pinterest would have been Microsoft’s largest acquisition, twice of what it spent after acquiring LinkedIn, a professional social media platform for $21 million dollars. Microsoft continues to pursue its goal of accruing a portfolio of active online communities which could run on Azure, its online cloud platform. Pinterest currently leans on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for providing infrastructure.

However, Pinterest has walked away from the deal stating it wants to remain an independent entity. The online social media service has seen an enormous growth during the pandemic.

Pinterest has seen a 36% growth in the number of users compared to last year. Pinterest is the 4th largest social media platform in the US as Facebook and Instagram and YouTube hold the top spots.

More than 40% users in the US have a Pinterest account. Pinterest is on the 10th position ranked by the Prophet’s Brand relevance Index after major giants like Apple, Spotify and Disney. It has been crowned first position in surveys like “makes me feel inspired” and “inspires me to be more creative” categories.

Microsoft's Previous Acquisitions

Microsoft is a multinational corporation that develops, licenses, and supports various products and services related predominantly to computers. After its Initial Public Offering, its market capitalization was close to $519 million. Microsoft's first acquisition was Forethought in 1983. It developed a presentation program which we all know as Microsoft PowerPoint.

In 1977, Microsoft acquired HotMail.com, a web mail service for $500 million, its largest acquisition at the time. Co-founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, Hot mail was a free web mail service with user base of 8.5 million at the time.

In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype, a VoIP creation of Skype Technologies for 8.5 billion. Skype is available on smartphones , desktops and iPhone devices. it enables audio, video calls, personalized messaging and low rate calling to mobile networks and landlines around the world.

Microsoft would be reaching a milestone in terms of its online community base if it acquires Pinterest. It did so by acquiring the professional social networking site, LinkedIn in 2016. It also acquired GitHub, a code repository that helps network software developers, and Minecraft, an online game that last year passed 131 million users. After all the impedance and reluctance shown by Pinterest...

Will Microsoft continue to pursue its goal to acquire Pinterest? Can this acquisition happen?

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