Owner Scorecard


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APP, AppLovin

Advertising & Marketing asset-light Cyclical

We provide end-to-end artificial intelligence-powered advertising solutions for businesses to reach, monetize and grow their global audience.

We generate revenue when our advertisers achieve their return on advertising spend targets with our advertising solutions, ensuring that their success directly fuels our growth.

AppLovin is critical to the success of advertisers and publishers seeking to solve marketing and monetization challenges.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
APP · AppLovin
I

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025
$5.5B
+70.0% YoY · 30% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $6.2B 5-yr avg $3.2B
Operating margin 77.1% 5-yr avg 36.1%
ROIC 130% 5-yr avg 36%
Owner-earnings margin 72% 5-yr avg 37%
Free cash flow margin 72% 5-yr avg 37%

Next report By 8/9 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late June · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~37 days after · the wire records it on arrival

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation
Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle
Gross margin has run about 76% and operating margin about 20% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −4.3% and 76% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −191 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 10%). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 17% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

48% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • United States52%$2.8B
  • International48%$2.7B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$994M$1.5B$2.8B$2.8B$1.8B$3.2B$5.5B$6.2BRevenueRevenue
$753M$896M$1.8B$1.6B$1.5B$2.7BGross profitGross prof.
76%62%65%55%81%84%Gross marginGross mgn
52%48%46%39%21%13%8%7%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
5%12%13%18%18%12%4%4%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$194M($62M)$150M($48M)$772M$1.9B$4.2B$4.8BOperating incomeOp. inc.
19.6%−4.3%5.4%−1.7%41.9%59.3%75.8%77.1%Operating marginOp. mgn
$126M($136M)$46M($205M)$502M$1.6B$4.0BPretax incomePretax
$119M($125M)$35M($193M)$357M$1.6B$3.3B$4.0BNet incomeNet inc.
6%24%9%1%13%15%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$198M$223M$362M$413M$1.1B$2.1B$4.0B$4.4BOperating cash flowOp. cash
$93M$255M$431M$547M$489M$449M$195M$149MDepreciationDeprec.
($24M)$31M($238M)($133M)($147M)($299M)$232M$87MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$3M$3M$1M$662K$4M$5M$5MCapexCapex
0.3%0.2%0.0%0.0%0.2%0.1%0.1%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$195M$220M$360M$412M$1.1B$2.1B$4.4BOwner earningsOwner earn.
19.6%15.1%12.9%14.6%57.4%65.0%71.8%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$195M$220M$360M$412M$1.1B$2.1B$4.4BFree cash flowFCF
19.6%15.1%12.9%14.6%57.4%65.0%71.8%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$404M$675M$1.2B$1.3B$64M$64MAcquisitionsAcquis.
$11K$2M$0$339M$1.2B$981M$2.2BBuybacksBuybacks
($412M)($680M)($1.2B)($1.4B)($78M)($107M)$358MInvesting cash flowInv. cash
$333M$378M$3.1B($527M)($1.6B)($1.7B)($2.6B)Financing cash flowFin. cash
$60K$141K($3M)($4M)$778K($3M)$9MExchange-rate effectFX
$120M($79M)$2.3B($1.5B)($578M)$239M$1.7BChange in cashΔ cash
-4%3%-1%18%48%114%130%ROICROIC
2%-10%28%145%156%168%Return on equityROE
2%−10%28%145%156%168%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$396M$317M$1.5B$1.1B$502M$697M$2.5B$2.8BCash & investmentsCash+inv
$297M$515M$703M$954M$1.3B$1.8B$2.0BReceivablesReceiv.
$147M$258M$273M$372M$504M$747M$698MAccounts payablePayables
$150M$256M$430M$582M$779M$1.1B$1.3BOperating working capitalOper. WC
$663M$3.2B$1.9B$1.6B$2.3B$4.4B$4.8BCurrent assetsCur. assets
$598M$640M$579M$944M$1.1B$1.3B$1.5BCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.1×5.1×3.3×1.7×2.2×3.3×3.2×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$29M$64M$79M$173M$160M$122MNet PP&ENet PP&E
$137M$250M$966M$1.8B$1.5B$1.5B$1.5B$1.5BGoodwillGoodwill
$2.2B$6.2B$5.8B$5.4B$5.9B$7.3B$7.7BTotal assetsAssets
$1.6B$3.2B$3.2B$3.1B$3.5B$3.5B$3.5BTotal debtDebt
$1.3B$1.7B$2.1B$2.6B$2.8B$1.0B$755MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
2.6×-0.8×1.5×-0.3×2.8×6.0×20.1×23.1×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.3B$4.0B$3.9B$4.1B$4.8B$5.1BTotal liabilitiesTotal liab.
$309K$201K$0Redeemable interestsRedeemable
($257M)($159M)$2.1B$1.9B$1.3B$1.1B$2.1B$2.4BShareholders’ equityEquity
1.0%4.3%4.8%6.8%19.7%11.5%3.8%3.8%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
212M215M343M372M363M348M342M339MShares out (diluted)Shares
$4.68$6.75$8.15$7.58$5.08$9.27$16.03$18.20Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.56$-0.58$0.10$-0.52$0.98$4.54$9.75$11.70EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.92$1.02$1.05$1.11$2.92$6.02$13.07Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.92$1.02$1.05$1.11$2.92$6.02$13.07Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.02$0.02$0.00$0.00$0.01$0.01$0.01Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-1.21$-0.74$6.24$5.12$3.46$3.13$6.24$6.98Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.59 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
6-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+22.8%/yr+18.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share+45.6%/yr (5-yr)+45.6%/yr
EPS+61.0%/yr
Capital spending / share−2.8%/yr (5-yr)−2.8%/yr

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2019FY2025

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2024 the business turned $1.6B of profit into $2.1B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$1.6B
Owner earnings$2.1B · 65% of revenue
FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021FY2020
Reported net income$1.6B$357M($193M)$35M($125M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$449M+$489M+$547M+$431M+$255M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$369M+$363M+$192M+$133M+$62M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$299M−$147M−$133M−$238M+$31M
Cash from operations$2.1B$1.1B$413M$362M$223M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$5M−$4M−$662K−$1M−$3M
Owner earnings$2.1B$1.1B$412M$360M$220M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue65%57%15%13%15%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $369M), owner earnings is nearer $1.7B.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Comfortable
    Operating income $4.2B ÷ interest expense $207M
    What this means

    Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.0B · 0.2× operating profit
    Modest net debt
    Cash $2.5B − debt $3.5B
    What this means

    Netting $2.5B of cash and short-term investments against $3.5B of debt leaves $1.0B owed, about 0.2× a year's operating profit (0.8× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Negative, funded by others
    DSO 121 + DIO 0 − DPO 410 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

  • Solid through the cycle
    6-yr median, range -4%–114%; 114% latest = NOPAT $3.6B ÷ invested capital $3.2B
    Industry peers: median 4%
    What this means

    The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 6 years (it ran 114% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.

  • Not enough data
    Industry peers: median 7%
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops $4.0B ÷ net income $3.3B
    What this means

    How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

  • Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

  • Investing or harvesting?
    Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

The promise and the pay packet

  • Sells itself
    Selling and marketing $204M ÷ revenue $5.5B
    What this means

    Sales and marketing as a share of revenue, kept apart from administrative overhead because it answers a different question: how much a business must spend to win the next customer. A company whose product pulls customers in spends little here and keeps the difference; one that must buy its growth is running to stand still, and the spending has to keep rising for revenue to keep rising. Read it beside the growth rate, not alone.

  • Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 3.8%
    The count is genuinely shrinking
    Stock compensation $210M (fiscal 2025), 3.8% of revenue · repurchases $2.2B · diluted shares -8.0% since 2022
    What this means

    Stock handed to employees is a real cost paid in the owner's own currency: it is charged against profit, but the shares it creates are permanent. Many companies repurchase stock at the same time, which looks like a return of capital and often is not — if the count barely moves, the cash merely cancelled the pay packet and bought the owner nothing. The three states worth telling apart are a count genuinely shrinking, a count standing still despite large repurchases, and a count rising because the issuance was never offset at all.

Graham’s defensive tests · 3 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

  • Adequate size Pass
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $5.5B
    What this means

    Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.

  • Strong liquidity Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 3.32×
    What this means

    Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.

  • Conservative debt Near
    Debt ≤ working capital · $3.5B vs $3.1B WC
    What this means

    Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.

  • Earnings stability Miss
    A profit every year (7-yr record) · 2 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record
    Uninterrupted dividends · no dividend line tagged in the data
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. This record carries no dividends-paid line in any year — common for partnerships, whose distributions file under tags the chain doesn't read — so the criterion is withheld rather than judged on silence.

  • Earnings growth Pass
    Earnings +33% over the record · +17888%
    What this means

    At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.

  • Moderate price
    P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
    What this means

    Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $5.22/share (latest year $9.91), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $6.35/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2019–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

  • Profitable years 5 of 7
    What this means

    Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 3 of 6 yrs
    What this means

    A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.

  • Operating margin 7% → 59% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 7% early to 59% lately, median 20% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
    What this means

    The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.

  • Owner earnings growth +50%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 50% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2020 · −4.3% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count +8.3%/yr
    What this means

    The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$4.8B
  • Cash & short-term investments$2.8B
  • Receivables$2.0B
  • Other current assets$131M
Current liabilities$1.5B
  • Accounts payable$698M
  • Other current liabilities$797M
Current ratio3.24×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio3.24×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.85×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$3.4Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+59.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters2.3× → 3.2×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$471Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($497M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$3.5B$32M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$48Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2019–2024

Over the record, the business generated $4.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$18M · 0%
  • Buybacks$2.5B · 57%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$1.9B · 43%
  • Returned to owners$2.5B

    57% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $2.5B as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $2.4B.

  • Average price paid for buybacks

    Buybacks ran $2.5B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.

  • Net change in share count59.5%

    The diluted count rose from 212M to 339M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.

  • Dividend record

    No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 7-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$1.9B27% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity72%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$3.7Bover 7 years buying other businesses, against $18M of capital spent building

$189M written down across 1 year (2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021Adam Foroughi$104k$104k$360M
2022Adam Foroughi$104k$104k$412M
2023Adam Foroughi$83.4M$286.9M$1.1B
2024Adam Foroughi$11.2M$386.0M$2.1B
2025Adam Foroughi$13.0M$21.7M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

  • CEO pay ratio97:1

    What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.

  • Stock-based compensation$210M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 3.8% of revenue, equal to 5.1% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Income taxes, Stock compensation as critical estimates

    each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Advertising & Marketing

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.

CompanyRevenuelatest FY, USDGross marginmedian over the recordOp. marginmedian over the recordROICmedian over the recordOwner earn. marginmedian over the record
IPGInterpublic$10.7B15%10.9%24%7%
APPAppLovin$5.5B70%19.6%10%17%
STGWStagwell Inc.$2.9B35%5.1%4%5%
TTDThe Trade Desk Inc.$2.9B79%17.4%22%28%
TBLATaboola.com Ltd.$1.9B30%0.3%-2%6%
UUnity Software$1.8B76%-36.8%-15%-6%
DVDoubleVerify$748M83%12.5%7%18%
MGNIMagnite Inc.$714M62%-18.6%-13%18%
Group median66%8.0%5%12%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what AppLovin has delivered.

AppLovin’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

$

Through the cycle, AppLovin earns about $953M on its 17.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s — margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base

The assumptions

9.0% = the 4.68% 10-year Treasury (Jul 30, 2026) + 4.32 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth · ’20→’24+53%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’19→’24+50%/yr
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)
P/B
Graham’s price gate

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.68%, as of Jul 30, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $4.4B on 336M shares outstanding, the balance-sheet count at 2026-03-31; net debt $755M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "AppLovin (APP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/APP, data as of 2026-07-18.

Manual order: ← APOS its page in the Manual APPF →

Industry order: ← 4324 the Advertising & Marketing chapter CCO →