AppLovin, down 59% this year, beats its own guidance by $100 million and jumps 35.9% after hours

The quarter that answered a year of selling

AppLovin▲+35.92% — AppLovin, up 35.92 percent today (Nasdaq: APP), which sells game studios and consumer advertisers the engine that decides where their ad money goes, closed Wednesday, November 4, at $274.62, down 59% for 2026 ¹. After-hours quotes climbed from up 16% ² to up 24% ³ to about 35.9% ⁴⁵, and the move held into Thursday, with the stock trading near $335 ⁶. What moved it was the company's own arithmetic: third-quarter revenue of $2.185 billion↗, up 55% year over year, net income of $1.44 billion, up 72%, and a 66% net income margin ⁷.

A $100 million beat of its own ceiling

Management guided to $2.055–2.085 billion of revenue↗ ⁸; the quarter landed about $100 million above the top of that range, up 14% sequentially ⁵. The fourth-quarter guide of $2.365–2.395 billion clears the $2.25 billion consensus ² and implies 43–44% growth ⁵. Free cash flow was $1.4 billion, 77% of adjusted EBITDA, against 53% conversion in the second quarter ⁵.

The board added $3.2 billion of buyback authorization, taking the total to $3.6 billion, after the company spent $1.4 billion repurchasing in the quarter ⁷. Chief financial officer Matt Stumpf said AppLovin stepped up the buying because it saw "a dislocation between the share price and its view of intrinsic value" ⁵.

Advertisers kept paying while the market kept cutting

Gaming revenue grew nearly 50% from a year earlier, and consumer-advertiser spending rose by triple digits year over year on a new generation of ad models partially rolled out ⁵. The bear case had leaned on other companies' numbers: Reddit▲+5.67% — Reddit, up 5.67 percent today and the gaming platform Roblox▲+7.48% — Roblox, up 7.48 percent today reported weaker user figures on October 29↗, and AppLovin fell 10% the next day to a 52-week low of $228.50 ⁶. UBS cut its price target to $414 from $790 on October 28, citing slower consumer-advertiser growth, though Citi▲+1.52% — Citi, up 1.52 percent today kept a Buy at $500 ⁶.

AppLovin's second-quarter filing showed installs down 10% in the first half while net revenue per install rose 75% ⁶, the disconnect tracked when Axon, its advertising engine, was taking 53% of iOS ad revenue.

The Unity dispute heads to arbitration

On October 2, a San Francisco judge denied AppLovin's request for a restraining order↗ against Unity▲+4.99% — Unity, up 4.99 percent today, its rival in game advertising ⁹. AppLovin says Unity abused its position as a bidder on the MAX in-app bidding platform to steal protected data; Unity calls its Ad Quality software a publisher-authorized tool, and the dispute is moving to private arbitration ⁹.

Unity prints into a repriced tape

Chief executive Adam Foroughi supplied the caution himself: e-commerce advertisers spend heavily in the fourth quarter and less in the first, so bigger fourth quarters bring tougher first quarters ⁵. Unity (NYSE: U) reports its own third quarter before the market opens on November 5↗ ¹⁰, the print our November 4 story on Unity tying $1.3 billion of studio ad financing to its data framework was waiting on.

Watch February's first-quarter guide, the pace of the $3.6 billion buyback, and whether installs, down 10% in the first half, turn up with fourth-quarter results.