comScore reported that Pinterest had 11.7 million unique U.S. visitors in January 2012.
The figure captured Pinterest’s rapid early growth. ComScore, a media-measurement and analytics company, counted U.S. users who visited the site during that month. The result made Pinterest the fastest standalone website to surpass 10 million unique U.S. visitors.
This milestone followed Pinterest’s expansion beyond its early invitation-only community. The service, founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, had gained attention for letting users organize visual collections around interests such as fashion, recipes, travel, and home design.
A common mix-up is December 2011 traffic data: Hitwise reported that Pinterest was among the largest social-networking services by weekly visits. That was a different measurement and period. The January 2012 figure of 11.7 million unique U.S. visitors is specifically associated with comScore.