AppLovin enjoys wave of price target hikes after posting better than expected quarterly results

AppLovin is rising in premarket trading, after the adtech company yesterday reported top- and bottom-line results that modestly exceeded expectations and posted guidance for the current quarter that struck a similar chord.

Wall Street is reveling in the results with a boatload of price target hikes: UBS to $840 from $810, Piper Sandler to $800 from $740, Wedbush also to $800 from $745, Scotiabank to $750 from $575, Goldman Sachs to $720 from $630, BTIG to $705 from $693, and JPMorgan to $650 from $425.

The Q3 numbers:

• Revenue: $1.41 billion (compared to an analyst consensus estimate of $1.34 billion and guidance for $1.33 billion)

• Adjusted EBITDA: $1.16 billion (estimate: $1.09 billion, guidance: $1.08 billion)

Q4 guidance:

• Revenue: $1.585 billion (estimate: $1.54 billion)

• Adjusted EBITDA: $1.315 billion (estimate: $1.27 billion)

Shares are up more than 2% as of 9:45 a.m. ET.

After its Q2 report, CEO Adam Foroughi said that the real “fun” starts this quarter, as the company began to open its self-service ad portal on a referral basis on October 1. Bank of America analyst Omar Dessouky is especially bullish on this channel, expecting the company to book 4,000 large advertisers after the portal becomes fully available for onboards in the first half of 2026.

However, Q4 has not been fun for the adtech company thus far. Shares are down about 15% since the end of September, with the bulk of the decline catalyzed by a report that the SEC is investigating its data collection practices, which was followed by another report indicating that multiple state regulators are also looking into the same matter.

“Legal risk lingers: AppLovin has denied short-seller claims about its Array product, which was later shut down amid possible probes by the SEC and some US state regulators,” Bloomberg Intelligence technology analyst Nathan Naidu wrote ahead of this report. “A related class-action suit filed in March could cost up to $750 million if it proceeds to trial.”