1. How do you see the growth of $IS in both ad business and games business impact $APP and its market share?
2. Do you think first party data from 350+ games will be enough to wither IDFA like change in Google if any, in comparison to someone like $U which has data from over 3b devices?
3. Thoughts on acquisition of Adjsut? How does it help the ecosystem?
P.S. I am an investor in $APP as well but less significant holding + I have worked with their game publishing department closely for 2 years
great questions, sorry for the long delay in replying.
1. My sense has not been that ironSource has changed the competitive environment much, if at all. AppLovin still seems to be well ahead. Don't see any real change in either company's Q1 earnings. The relative performance of the two stocks suggests the market isn't seeing any real change, either. Admittedly, I could be missing something there.
2. It depends on what vertical and what revenue stream you're talking about, and what precisely what those changes look like. I think it's helpful, particularly in the gaming vertical where targeting is less useful. It's certainly not enough for AppLovin to see no impact - I'd argue, particularly down here, that the market is pricing in a large impact though. (always a dangerous case I admit)
3. Ditto - I mean, what does the attribution environment look like in 2025? It's helped so far, it was a logical buy, and it won't break the stock if it doesn't quite work out. But I honestly am not sure how you quite judge that in this environment.
I mean, after getting the call so wrong it's hard to be too confident.
That said, I've ridden my trimmed position down and I don't entirely understand what's going on here. I get the industry concerns (boy that TTWO acquisition of ZNGA does not look great) but their software business seems to be holding just fine, with the guidance cuts coming from games (which was run-off EBITDA anyway).
I think the bear case is and has been that the ecosystem is going to shrink, and maybe substantially, and so the software business is going to flatten out going forward. But even in that context valuation looks absolutely ridiculous. Of course, again, I've been dead wrong here - it's a little funny this was our first call, but only a little funny.
Interesting read.
Few questions:
1. How do you see the growth of $IS in both ad business and games business impact $APP and its market share?
2. Do you think first party data from 350+ games will be enough to wither IDFA like change in Google if any, in comparison to someone like $U which has data from over 3b devices?
3. Thoughts on acquisition of Adjsut? How does it help the ecosystem?
P.S. I am an investor in $APP as well but less significant holding + I have worked with their game publishing department closely for 2 years
great questions, sorry for the long delay in replying.
1. My sense has not been that ironSource has changed the competitive environment much, if at all. AppLovin still seems to be well ahead. Don't see any real change in either company's Q1 earnings. The relative performance of the two stocks suggests the market isn't seeing any real change, either. Admittedly, I could be missing something there.
2. It depends on what vertical and what revenue stream you're talking about, and what precisely what those changes look like. I think it's helpful, particularly in the gaming vertical where targeting is less useful. It's certainly not enough for AppLovin to see no impact - I'd argue, particularly down here, that the market is pricing in a large impact though. (always a dangerous case I admit)
3. Ditto - I mean, what does the attribution environment look like in 2025? It's helped so far, it was a logical buy, and it won't break the stock if it doesn't quite work out. But I honestly am not sure how you quite judge that in this environment.
Any updated thoughts on APP?
Seems like there's a gap between the company's performance (lumpy but not horrible) vs the stock price movement.
My guess is that a lot of that is driven by fears about the advertising market and getting tossed into the same bucket as Unity.
I mean, after getting the call so wrong it's hard to be too confident.
That said, I've ridden my trimmed position down and I don't entirely understand what's going on here. I get the industry concerns (boy that TTWO acquisition of ZNGA does not look great) but their software business seems to be holding just fine, with the guidance cuts coming from games (which was run-off EBITDA anyway).
I think the bear case is and has been that the ecosystem is going to shrink, and maybe substantially, and so the software business is going to flatten out going forward. But even in that context valuation looks absolutely ridiculous. Of course, again, I've been dead wrong here - it's a little funny this was our first call, but only a little funny.