Applovin,
a software maker that helps its customers increase sales with artificial intelligence, jumped in early trading after it reported better-than-expected earnings.
Shares of
Applovin
(ticker: APP) rose 24% in premarket trading Thursday to $36.58. The company reported second-quarter earnings of 22 cents a share after the bell Wednesday, blowing out expectations of 8 cents. The stock price has almost tripled this year.
AI has been a big driver of some technology stocks, most notably
Nvidia
(NVDA), which became the first chip maker with a valuation above $1 trillion earlier this year. Investors are now asking which companies or sectors might also benefit from advances in machine learning.
Applovin’s profit contrasted with a loss in the same period a year ago. It beat expectations for revenue and guided for third-quarter sales of $780 million to $800 million, higher than the $741 million analysts had anticipated.
“Outperformance was driven primarily by the successful roll-out of our latest AI-based advertising engine,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.
Citigroup analysts led by Jason Bazinet kept their Buy rating on the stock following Applovin’s results. Their price target is $32.
By contrast, Benchmark analyst Mark Zgutowicz kept his Sell rating on Applovin, though he raised his price target to $22 from $17 after the report.
Write to Brian Swint at [email protected]
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