Key Takeaways
- AppLovin stock is up 61% in the past week, lifted by a 55% jump in third-quarter revenue and a fourth-quarter forecast above estimates.
- Fast ad growth at Unity suggests Roblox’s user slump hasn’t hit game ad budgets, which was the worry behind AppLovin’s October low.
- The board added $3.2 billion to the buyback, but the CEO warns gains from its new ad models won’t arrive on a tidy schedule.
- At about 20x forward earnings, the stock trades below its five-year average, and February’s report has to show consumer ads can carry growth.
AppLovin (APP) stock is up 61% in the past week, after its third-quarter report showed none of the slowdown investors feared. (Even so, it’s still down 41% in 2026.)
Investors had sent it to a 52-week closing low on Oct. 30, a day after Roblox (RBLX) said its daily active users fell 9% from a year earlier. But Unity Software (U), a rival for game makers’ ad budgets, said on Nov. 5 that its Vector ad platform grew revenue 126%.
Management is still buying
Revenue rose 55% to $2.18 billion, against about $2.07 billion expected. The fourth-quarter guide of $2.365 billion to $2.395 billion topped the roughly $2.25 billion analysts were looking for.
AppLovin spent $1.4 billion repurchasing and withholding 4.1 million shares in the quarter, about $341 each. The board then added $3.2 billion to the buyback, citing “continued confidence in the Company’s future.” With the stock now well above $341, that’s a sign management still sees value at higher prices.
Analysts expect earnings to keep climbing through 2028:
The 2026 normalized EPS estimate has already risen to $17.35, from $16.59 in late October.
Gaming is close to maxed out
CEO Adam Foroughi said on the call that gaming grew nearly 50% from a year earlier as the new ad models rolled out, but added: “We have every mobile gaming company live, probably.” So consumer advertisers have to carry the next leg, and CFO Matt Stumpf said their spending grew triple digits year over year. With Unity growing that fast, Roblox’s slide looks like its own problem. Still, Unity is a fast-growing rival: it guided fourth-quarter strategic Grow revenue up 105% to 107%.
TIKR tracks 33 analysts on AppLovin. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on AppLovin, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See AppLovin’s Analyst Ratings
February will show the rest of the rollout
Foroughi called the new models “a partial rollout” and warned that the gains “won’t land on a perfect quarterly schedule.” He couldn’t commit to a date for the full rollout, so an uneven quarter is possible. A class action alleging AppLovin misled investors about how fast its models were improving is also pending, though its claims are unproven.
Even after the run, AppLovin trades at about 20x forward earnings, below its five-year average of about 25x:
At that price, AppLovin still looks like a buy, as long as consumer advertisers pick up where gaming leaves off. The fourth-quarter report, expected in February, is the next test: the third quarter beat the top of its guide by about $100 million, so revenue above $2.395 billion would show the rollout has more to give.
So what is AppLovin stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
