AppLovin Q1 2026 earnings: revenue up 59%, Axon ad platform opens up
AppLovin's revenue grew 59% year-over-year in Q1 2026, with record profit margins and a major expansion of its advertising platform announced.
| Q1 2026 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $3.56 |
| Revenue | $1.84B |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Revenue rose 59% from a year earlier and 11% from the previous quarter, driven mainly by AppLovin’s advertising business, which uses AI models to help mobile apps find and target new users.
- Adjusted EBITDA, a measure of core operating profit before certain non-cash and financing costs, came in at $1.56 billion, an 85% margin — the highest the company has reported — with margins expanding roughly 4 percentage points versus a year earlier.
- The very high margins shown in the fundamentals table (gross margin near 88%, operating margin around 77%) reflect AppLovin’s software-based ad-tech model, which scales revenue without a proportional rise in costs.
- Free cash flow was $1.29 billion for the quarter, and the company used a portion of that cash to repurchase and withhold about 2.2 million shares for roughly $1.0 billion.
- Net income more than doubled from a year earlier, consistent with the sharp year-over-year EPS growth shown in the fundamentals data.
- The headline announcement was the planned June launch of Axon, AppLovin’s self-serve advertising platform, opening it to global advertisers for the first time after 14 years of operating as a closed system, paired with AI creative tools meant to let advertisers set up and run campaigns without manual help.
- Management pointed to hybrid monetization — combining in-app purchases with advertising — and improved AI models as key drivers of growth during the quarter.
- For the second quarter, AppLovin guided to revenue of about $1.92–$1.95 billion, implying continued growth in the low-to-mid 50% range year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA margin expected to stay in the mid-80% range.
- The company said the Axon platform opening could eventually bring on a large number of new advertisers, citing an estimate of up to 100,000 new customers representing about $7 billion in initial-year ad spending potential.
Q1 2026 in context
| Metric | Mar 2026 | Mar 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.8B | $1.2B | +59.0% |
| Net income | $1.2B | $576M | +109.2% |
| Diluted EPS | $3.56 | $1.67 | +113.2% |
| Gross margin | 88.9% | 86.9% | +2.0 pts |
| Operating margin | 78.2% | 72.5% | +5.7 pts |
| Net margin | 65.4% | 49.7% | +15.7 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Mar 2026 and the quarter ended Mar 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
Applovin Corp closed at $478.11 on May 5, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $498.87 on May 7, 2026, the first session after it — +4.3% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 5, 2025 | $608.68 | $621.36 | +2.1% |
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Sources: company report · company blog / earnings materials · earnings call