AppLovin Corporation — APP

[ ] I    THE BUSINESS     what they sell, how it earns, who pays
[ ] II   THE MOAT         pricing power, and the clock on it
[ ] III  OWNER EARNINGS   what it really earns, and where the cash goes
[ ] IV   INVERT           what kills it — ranked and dated
[ ] V    THE LADDER       the cycle this name is standing on
[ ] VI   THE PRICE        what you pay against what you get

Resume at Chapter I.

IDENTITY

Name        AppLovin Corporation
            Sells advertising. Its Axon AI recommendation engine matches
            advertiser demand to publisher supply in microsecond auctions,
            mostly inside mobile apps owned by third parties, and charges
            the advertiser against a return-on-ad-spend goal rather than a
            fixed price per impression or per install. It has begun
            selling to web-based e-commerce advertisers as well.
            One operating and reportable segment; four products — Axon
            Ads Manager, user acquisition, substantially all of revenue ·
            MAX, publisher-side in-app bidding · Adjust, measurement and
            analytics · Wurl, connected TV.
Ticker      APP  (Nasdaq Global Select Market)
Form        C-corp — Class A 1 vote · Class B 20 votes · Class C no vote [^1]
Filed in    Delaware [^2]
HQ          1100 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [^2]
Founded     July 2011 [^3]        Listed  2021-04-15 at $80.00 [^4]
Fiscal year fixed year end, December 31 every year
            Q1 Jan–Mar · Q2 Apr–Jun · Q3 Jul–Sep · Q4 Oct–Dec
            FY2025 ended 2025-12-31 · last reported Q2 to 2026-06-30
Earnings    2026-11-04 estimated [C] — Q3 FY2026, July–September 2026
Bought      2021-04-20 adjust GmbH — mobile marketing measurement and
              analytics, $980.0M stated, $967.8M at fair value
            2022-01-01 the MoPub business, bought from Twitter — a mobile
              ad exchange, since folded into MAX, $1.03B cash
            2022-04-01 Wurl, Inc. — a connected-TV distribution and
              advertising platform, $378.2M
Sold        2025-06-30 the Apps business — the mobile game studios — to
              Tripledot Studios for $715.6M: $430.6M cash and 596.9M
              Tripledot ordinary shares valued at $285.0M, about 22% of
              Tripledot [^5]
Employees   898 at 2025-12-31 — 876 full-time, 22 part-time or intern,
              across 15 countries, 60% of them outside the US [^6]
Industry    Communication Services · Advertising Agencies [^7]
Runs it     Adam Foroughi, Co-Founder, CEO & Director
              (45, serving 14 years) [^8]
            Matthew Stumpf, CFO (42, serving 6 years) [^8]
            Vasily Shikin, CTO (41, serving 14 years) [^8]
            Victoria Valenzuela, Chief Administrative & Legal Officer and
              Corporate Secretary (52, serving 6 years) [^8]
            Craig Billings, independent Chairperson of the board
              (53, serving 5 years) [^8]
Ownership   12.8% insiders · 76.1% institutions · 11.1% retail [^9]
            ★ the same insiders hold 64.0% of the votes

THE NUMBERS

The opening snapshot — all [F] 2026-09-04 unless tagged otherwise.

Scale       revenue $6,829.1M ttm · 334.65M shares · $104.94B market cap [^10]
Growth      revenue +60.6% y/y ttm [^11]
            revenue, continuing operations, every year restated onto that
              basis  FY23 $1,841.8M → FY24 $3,224.1M → FY25 $5,480.7M →
              $6,829.1M ttm
            EPS  FY23 $0.98 → FY24 $4.53 → FY25 $9.75 → $13.01 ttm [M]
            the same years restated, continuing operations only
              FY23 $1.26 → FY24 $4.56 → FY25 $10.04 [M] [^12]
Margins     gross 88.5% [M] · operating 77.4% · net 64.6% [^13]
Balance     cash $3,053.3M · debt $3,515.1M · net debt $461.8M [^14]
            net debt 0.44% of market cap · cap + net debt $105.40B
Capital     no dividend ever declared — all cash retained
            FY2025 returned $2,191.9M — all buyback, no dividends
            $1,950.6M repurchased ttm; weighted diluted shares 347.8M
              FY24 → 342.0M FY25 → 337.0M in the June quarter [^15]
Price       $313.58 close 2026-09-03 [^16]
            1 wk +0.3% · 1 mo −22.8% · 1 yr −35.7% · 5 yr +302.1%
            52-wk range $298.59 – $733.60 · 5-yr $9.30 – $733.60
EPS         $13.01 trailing [M]  ·  $15.70 FY2026 [C]  ·  $20.13 FY2027 [C] [^17]
P/E         24.1x trailing [M]
            20.0x on FY2026 consensus · 15.6x on FY2027 consensus [C]
            FY23 40.7x · FY24 71.5x · FY25 69.1x · today 24.1x [^18]

[^1]: Class C is authorised but none has ever been issued. At 2025-12-31 the parties to the Voting Agreement — Adam Foroughi and director Herald Chen, with affiliates — held all outstanding Class B stock and about 67% of total voting power.

[^2]: SEC EDGAR entity record, CIK 0001751008.

[^3]: Incorporated under the laws of Delaware in July 2011.

[^4]: The IPO priced at $80.00 per Class A share. The first close, the same day, was $65.20 — 65.20 / 80.00 = 0.815 → 18.5% below the offer.

[^5]: Prior periods were restated: the Apps business is presented as discontinued operations in every period shown, so the ladders above are like-for-like on the continuing advertising business. As originally reported, revenue was $3,283.1M in FY2023 and $4,709.2M in FY2024, against $1,841.8M and $3,224.1M restated. The sale itself produced a $106.2M pre-tax gain after $18.3M of transaction costs, but a $125.6M write-off of deferred tax assets carried the year's discontinued operations to a $99.4M loss, −$0.29 per diluted share. The Tripledot stake is accounted for as an equity-method investment, which makes Tripledot a related party.

[^6]: FY2025 10-K, Employees and Human Capital Resources, measured at 2025-12-31. The remaining 40% are in the United States.

[^7]: The data feed's classification. SEC EDGAR files the company under SIC 7370, Services—Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc.

[^8]: Ages are the 2026 proxy's, as of 2026-03-31. serving is years at AppLovin, not years in the role, and the two diverge here. Foroughi has been CEO and a director since December 2011, and was Chairperson from March 2021 until April 2026. Stumpf joined in February 2020 and became CFO in January 2024. Shikin joined in January 2012 as VP of Engineering and became CTO in January 2020. Valenzuela arrived in the 2020 Machine Zone acquisition, was Chief Legal Officer from May 2020, and took the Chief Administrative & Legal Officer title in July 2025; she is also standing for election to the board for the first time. Billings joined the board in December 2020, was Lead Independent Director from February 2021, and became independent Chairperson in April 2026.

[^9]: Insiders are all current directors and executive officers as a group — 14,437,484 Class A and 28,634,575 Class B shares at 2026-03-31, against 306,086,916 Class A and 30,207,521 Class B outstanding: 43,072,059 / 336,294,437 = 12.81% [M]. That holding carries 64.0% of the votes because Class B votes twenty to one; shares subject to the Voting Agreement carry 66.9%. Institutions are 76.1% [F] 2026-09-04, and retail is the balance, 100 − 12.8 − 76.1 = 11.1% [M]. The largest disclosed holders of Class A are Vanguard at 8.2%, BlackRock at 7.0% and Angel Pride Holdings at 5.6%.

[^10]: The price is the last settled daily close, from bars; 2026-09-04 was still trading when this was written. Shares are the Q2 10-Q cover count at 2026-07-31 — 304,443 thousand Class A plus 30,208 thousand Class B. 334.651M × $313.58 = $104.94B. Only the Class A line quotes as APP, so the market cap counts 30.2M shares that do not trade.

[^11]: The trailing twelve months are the four quarters to 2026-06-30 against the four to 2025-06-30, both on the continuing-operations basis. Each Q4 is the year less its own nine months: FY2025 revenue 5,480.717 − 3,822.773 = $1,657.944M, FY2024 3,224.058 − 2,224.571 = $999.487M. So 1,405.045 + 1,657.944 + 1,842.449 + 1,923.686 = $6,829.124M against 835.186 + 999.487 + 1,158.974 + 1,258.754 = $4,252.401M; 6,829.124 / 4,252.401 = 1.6059 → +60.6%.

[^12]: The first EPS line is GAAP diluted EPS as each year was reported at the time, which is the denominator the year-end multiples below divide by. The restated line is continuing operations alone: 455.622 / 362.589 = $1.26 for FY2023, 1,586.878 / 347.808 = $4.56 for FY2024 and 3,432.721 / 341.970 = $10.04 for FY2025 [M]. The trailing figure is the sum of the last four reported quarters, 2.45 + 3.24 + 3.56 + 3.76 = $13.01 [M], where Q4 2025 is 9.75 − 6.51 = $3.24. All four of those quarters are continuing operations only, the divestiture having closed 2025-06-30.

[^13]: AppLovin prints no gross profit line — the income statement runs revenue, then four cost lines, then income from operations — so gross margin is assembled here as revenue less cost of revenue and is therefore [M]: (6,829.124 − 787.817) / 6,829.124 = 88.5%. Operating 5,288.460 / 6,829.124 = 77.4%; net 4,409.952 / 6,829.124 = 64.6%. Each line is smaller than the one above it, so nothing enormous and non-operating sits in between: trailing pretax income was $5,211.234M and the tax provision $801.282M, an effective rate of 15.4% against the 21% federal statutory rate.

[^14]: At 2026-06-30: $3.6 billion aggregate principal of senior unsecured notes, carried at $3,515.072M net of discount and issuance costs, with no current portion. A separate $1.0B unsecured revolving facility was undrawn. 3,515.072 − 3,053.306 = $461.766M net debt; 461.766 / 104,939.9 = 0.44% of market cap. Trailing interest expense runs about $51M a quarter.

[^15]: The company has never declared a dividend. Trailing repurchases are 2,191.944 − 1,774.329 + 1,532.952 = $1,950.567M [M]. The reported repurchase figures include shares withheld on the net settlement of vested equity awards as well as open-market buying.

[^16]: Return windows are calendar, taking the last session on or before the same day of the month: 2026-08-27 $312.63, 2026-08-03 $406.16, 2025-09-03 $487.35, 2021-09-03 $77.98. 313.58 / 406.16 = 0.7721 → −22.8%; 313.58 / 487.35 = 0.6434 → −35.7%; 313.58 / 77.98 = 4.0213 → +302.1%. The ranges are closes; on an intraday basis the 52-week range is $297.50 – $745.61 and the five-year low is $9.14. The 52-week high close of $733.60 was 2025-12-22 and the low close of $298.59 was 2026-08-24; the five-year low close of $9.30 was 2022-12-27. Bars begin at the 2021-04-15 listing, so the five-year window is fully covered.

[^17]: AppLovin publishes no non-GAAP earnings per share — its only non-GAAP measures are Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA margin and free cash flow — so the consensus figures are GAAP and are directly comparable with the ladder above. FY2026 is $15.698 from 27 analysts, range $13.22–$16.65; FY2027 is $20.133 from 27, range $16.00–$22.50. Both have been cut since the Q2 report: 30 days earlier FY2026 stood at $16.018 and FY2027 at $21.164.

[^18]: Each year's multiple is that fiscal year's closing price over the same year's GAAP diluted EPS as reported, both ends measured at the same year end, so price and earnings cover the same period. FY23 $39.85 / $0.98 = 40.7x · FY24 $323.83 / $4.53 = 71.5x · FY25 $673.82 / $9.75 = 69.1x · today $313.58 / $13.01 = 24.1x. The forward multiples are 313.58 / 15.698 = 20.0x and 313.58 / 20.133 = 15.6x, both [C] because the denominator is. On the restated continuing-operations EPS of $10.04, FY2025 reads 67.1x.