Shares of AppLovin ripped 30% higher Thursday after the company reported a fourth-quarter earnings beat, causing many analysts to lift their price targets as the stock crossed the $500 mark for the first time ever.

The ad tech company said on its earnings call it was divesting its apps business as the company aims to move into other verticals for its artificial intelligence-powered AXON advertising software, such as fintech, insurance and automotive.

Analysts at Wolfe praised the sale of the apps segment, saying the company’s financials “gets cleaner at a time when its growth outlook gets better,” while raising their price target to $550 from $490.

“We believe the sales of its game development/publishing will make it easier for investors to justify APP’s expanding valuation multiple,” wrote Oppenheimer analysts after bringing their own target up to $560 from $380.

Wall Street is bullish on AppLovin, with 77% of the analysts covering the company rating it a buy or outperform, according to a CNBC analysis. There are no sell ratings.

AppLovin reported earnings per share of $1.73 on $1.37 billion in revenue for the final quarter, outperforming the expectations of analysts’ polled by LSEG, who expected earnings of $1.24 per share on $1.26 billion in revenue.

Net income in the quarter more than tripled to $599.2 million, or $1.73 per share, from $172.3 million, or 51 cents per share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Revenue jumped 43% from $953.3 million a year earlier, fueled by improvements and expansions to new categories for its AXON models.

AppLovin was the most successful tech stock in the U.S. last year, soaring more than 700% and outperforming even the biggest names in the AI space. Over the past 12 months, its gains are up more than 1000%, neck-and-neck with Palantir as the best performer year to date.

It expects first-quarter revenue of between $1.36 billion and $1.39 billion, exceeding the $1.32 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG.

More than $1 billion of that will come from its advertising segment, as the company said it is “still in the early stages” of bolstering its AI models further.

— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Michael Bloom.

Reddit shares dropped more than 6% Thursday after the social media company fell short of Wall Street’s user estimates in the fourth quarter.

The company reported a 39% rise in global daily active uniques from a year ago to 101.7 million, below the Wall Street estimate of 103.1 million.

In a letter to shareholders, CEO Steve Huffman said that Reddit experienced some “volatility” in user growth as a result of a Google search algorithm change. He noted that the tweak occurs twice a year and primarily impacts logged-out users who visit the site without an account, but search-related traffic has since recovered into the first quarter.

“What happened wasn’t unusual — referrals from search fluctuate from time to time, and they primarily affect logged-out users,” Huffman wrote. “Our teams have navigated numerous algorithm updates and did an excellent job adapting to these latest changes effectively.”

Despite the disappointing user figure, Reddit surpassed Wall Street’s top-and-bottom line estimates for the period, with earnings of 36 cents per share on $428 billion in sales. Analysts polled by LSEG had forecast earnings of 25 cents per share and $405 billion in revenue. Sales also grew 71% from a year ago.

Reddit also offered better-than-expected revenue guidance for the first quarter, while net income roughly quadrupled to $71 million, or 36 cents per share.

Many Wall Street analysts stood by the stock despite the Google issue, with Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak recommending that investors buy the dip. Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski maintained his overweight rating, but said a full bounce back in the stock may depend on steady consecutive U.S. user growth.

“We like Reddit’s growth but see balanced risk reward,” wrote Bank of America’s Justin Post. He cited a high valuation, dependence on Google and a potential revenue deceleration later this year among the reasons for his neutral rating.

Reddit’s stock has climbed since its initial public offering in March 2024 at $34 a share. Shares are up 24% year to date.

— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed reporting

Tesla robotics development rival Apptronik announced a $350 million Series A funding round Thursday morning to scale the production of artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots.

The funding round was co-led by B Capital and Capital Factory, and included backing from Google, CEO Jeff Cardenas said in an exclusive Squawk Box interview Thursday.

Apptronik, a Texas-based robotics developer founded in 2016, previously raised $28 million and is currently working on deploying what the company calls a “groundbreaking” humanoid robot designed for industrial work named Apollo.

“What’s happening in robotics is robots, with the power of AI, are becoming much more versatile,” Cardenas said. “Now we’re getting these robots out into the world in a pretty big way and scaling them up and going from industry and into the home in the future.”

The new funding will allow the company to scale its robot development to potentially address applications like manufacturing and healthcare. The robots will be trained separately from humans on repetitive tasks, Cardenas said, before they begin integrating into human life.

Apptronik has partnered with NASA and NVIDIA as it works on iterations of robots that rival those of Elon Musk’s Tesla. The company has developed 15 robotic systems, including NASA’s humanoid robot Valkyrie.

“The target price is for these robots to be less than the price of a car, so we’ve been working over the years, we’re on our ninth iteration of human robot,” Cardenas said. “These robots are going to get much more affordable over time.”

The company is also working with Google DeepMind to work on developing the AI driving the robotics technology.

Tesla has also moved into the fast-evolving humanoid robotics industry with the Tesla Optimus robot. According to Goldman Sachs, the global market for humanoid robots could reach $38 billion by 2035.

“I think we’re right there in the race,” Cardenas said. “I think what this round represents is that our investors are really backing us and think that we have a real shot at winning this race.”