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Image sharing site Pinterest takes off in Latin America

Virally popular social network Pinterest has seen its Latin American audience grow eightfold in just a few months.

People in the region -- especially women -- are becoming addicted to the site where they can create their own photo pinboards filled with images categorized into different themes.

“Even though Pinterest currently reaches just 1 percent of the regional audience, its impressive growth since the beginning of the year suggests it could quickly become a key player in Latin America’s vibrant social scene,” said Alejandro Fosk, comScore senior vice president of Latin America.

Facebook is the most popular social network in Latin America with 114.5 million unique visitors per month, but Pinterest’s Latin American audience has grown from just 153,000 visitors in the beginning of 2012 to 1.3 million visitors in April.

Market researcher comScore says Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing entrants in the social media space. Around the globe it has amassed an audience of nearly 30 million visitors per month.

The majority of Pinterest visitors in Latin America come from Brazil (27.8%), Mexico (16.1%) and Argentina (10.2%). Puerto Ricans and Argentinians are the most engaged users on the site, spending 24.3 minutes and 15.3 minutes there respectively each month.

The overall Pinterest user base in Latin America is skewed towards females: around 57.2 percent of visitors to the site in Latin America are female.

“Further analysis of the Pinterest.com audience revealed that females accounted for the majority of visitors and an even greater share of content consumption,” said comScore, “a gender skew that has been observed in markets across the globe as well.”

In a recent study, market analyst Experian said Pinterest had grown to become the third largest social media website in the US behind Facebook and Twitter, according to its figures for total visitors (as opposed to total unique visitors) for the month of February.