New York, Feb 12, 2026, 10:51 AM ET — Regular session
- AppLovin shares fell about 18% in late morning trading after its quarterly report and outlook.
- The adtech firm beat Wall Street’s sales estimate for the December quarter and forecast higher first-quarter revenue.
- CEO Arash “Adam” Foroughi told analysts the company was seeing its “strongest operating performance” despite investor worries about AI and rivals.
AppLovin Corporation shares slid about 18% to $375.13 on Thursday, extending a selloff that began after its quarterly report late Wednesday. The stock opened at $402.45 and hit an intraday low of $375.13 as volume swelled.
The drop matters because AppLovin has been priced for near-flawless execution. Any hint that growth is normalizing, or that bigger rivals are leaning in, can move the stock fast.
It also lands in a week when investors are jumpy about how advertising budgets hold up if the economy softens. For AppLovin, whose pitch rests on better targeting and higher returns on ad spend, the argument gets tested when marketers start trimming.
Late Wednesday, AppLovin said demand for its advertising services and AI-powered tools helped it beat fourth-quarter sales estimates, but shares still fell nearly 6% in extended trading. The company reported December-quarter sales of $1.66 billion, topping analysts’ average estimate of $1.60 billion, and forecast first-quarter sales of $1.75 billion to $1.78 billion, above estimates of $1.70 billion, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters. (Reuters)
In its earnings release, AppLovin reported fourth-quarter net income of $1.10 billion and adjusted EBITDA — a measure of operating profit — of $1.40 billion. It said free cash flow was $1.31 billion in the quarter, and it repurchased and withheld 0.8 million shares for $481.7 million, with $3.28 billion remaining under its authorization.
On the earnings call, CEO Arash “Adam” Foroughi opened by addressing the stock’s recent swings, saying the company was “delivering the strongest operating performance in our history.” He also pushed back on fears that Meta Platforms could overwhelm AppLovin’s in-app advertising niche, calling it “blatantly against Apple’s terms” for Meta to bid deterministically on opt-out traffic. (The Motley Fool)
The Meta question has become a shorthand for what investors worry about: whether a deep-pocketed bidder can raise auction prices and squeeze take rates and margins across mobile ads. Foroughi said Meta is already a bidder on traffic that carries an identifier, but not on “no ID” traffic, which he pegged at about two-thirds of the full-screen ad units it currently bids on.
There’s a straightforward downside case. If competition drives up ad pricing faster than AppLovin can lift conversion rates, margins compress and guidance looks less conservative in hindsight. A bump in spending to scale new products could also dent profitability, even if it helps long-term growth.
Investors will also watch how quickly AppLovin’s newer initiatives translate into repeatable revenue, not just anecdotes. Management has pointed to e-commerce and a self-serve rollout, but the market tends to demand clean datapoints when a stock is moving this much.
For the rest of the week, traders will weigh post-call analyst revisions and keep an eye on Friday’s U.S. Consumer Price Index report, which can reset rate expectations and risk appetite across growth stocks. (Investopedia)
