New York, February 12, 2026, 05:15 EST — Premarket
AppLovin Corporation skidded roughly 5% ahead of the bell Thursday, with shares quoted near $435 after the ad software company revealed a steep revenue surge last quarter and released its Q1 outlook. Wednesday’s session wrapped up with the stock at $456.81.
Expectations are already high as the report drops. AppLovin, now something of a bellwether among high-margin ad-tech firms, has seen its shares reprice fast when investors start to doubt the staying power of those margins.
AppLovin posted a 66% jump in revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31, hitting $1.658 billion. Adjusted EBITDA reached $1.399 billion, which works out to an 84% margin. Free cash flow landed at $1.31 billion. The company also disclosed it repurchased and withheld 0.8 million shares during the period. With these figures, there’s not much cushion for a slowdown.
Looking to the March quarter, the company is guiding for revenue between $1.745 billion and $1.775 billion, and sees adjusted EBITDA in a range of $1.465 billion to $1.495 billion. That keeps the adjusted EBITDA margin at 84%. Adjusted EBITDA, as defined here, excludes interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and certain other items labeled as non-core.
During the earnings call, CEO Adam Foroughi acknowledged ongoing talk about AI and competitive threats to the business, but highlighted what he called “the strongest operating performance in our history.” Analysts pushed for details on Meta’s role in mobile ads. Management responded that their annual report, Form 10-K, would be filed later this month, per a transcript from Investing.com. Investing.com
The e-commerce push is still a wild card for the company. Foroughi noted that rolling out its self-serve ad buying tools will be a gradual build and won’t “move the needle” immediately. He pointed to a broader “GA,” or general availability, rollout coming later. The Motley Fool
AppLovin shares were off roughly 6% at $429.30 late Wednesday, before paring some of those losses as Thursday’s open approached, MarketWatch data showed. The real action comes in the opening hour, where short-term moves tend to dictate direction.
Meta Platforms and the other major ad sellers still set the bar for investors tracking AppLovin’s efforts to expand past mobile gaming. AppLovin says it gets better with scale—the more auctions it processes, the smarter its models get. But investors are looking for proof that the e-commerce push can actually scale up without eating into profits.
Still, it’s a double-edged sword. If ad spending drops, privacy regulations tighten, or customer acquisition costs climb, margins could take a hit. And with the stock swinging lately, any hint of bad news tends to move quickly.
Besides the first bell, investors are also looking at Friday’s U.S. consumer price index for January, landing at 8:30 a.m. ET—a release known for shaking up rate bets and putting immediate pressure on growth stocks. For AppLovin, this macro update lands right as the company’s latest guidance is still in play.
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