AppLovin (NASDAQ:APP) continues to enjoy a rip-roaring 2024 as its Software segment has now grown 60%-plus year over year for five consecutive quarters following its third quarter financial results.

AppLovin shares spiked 45% during Thursday morning market action. Shares ascended an eye-popping 325% over the last year. AppLovin is also an Alpha Picks stock that has surged since entering the portfolio on Nov. 15, 2023, at $42.44. It has a Hold rating from Seeking Alpha's Quant system.

Not content, the company is already pursing another large total addressable market as its e-commerce pilot platform continues to show improvement.

"Early data has exceeded our expectations, with the advertisers in the pilot seeing substantial returns, often surpassing those from other media channels, and in many cases, experiencing nearly a 100% incrementality from our traffic," said AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi, during last night's earnings call. "We're increasingly confident this vertical will scale significantly in 2025 and become a strong contributor for us over the next year and beyond."

The company has streamlined resources and reallocated talent from other initiatives to its e-commerce go-to-market team.

"In the next few quarters, we'll launch a self-service platform, opening global opportunities for advertisers of all sizes," he added.

"In '24E, e-commerce is still too small to be material for results, but APP believes there will be meaningful impact in 2025 and strong growth for the long-term," said Needham analyst Bernie Mcternan, in a Thursday investor note.

"APP continues to execute well and has established itself as the clear leader in mobile gaming user acquisition and monetization, but meaningfully scaling beyond gaming remains early and APP’s ~22.5x EBITDA multiple is a notable premium to most ad tech peers," said J.P. Morgan analysts, led by Cory Carpenter, in an investor note.

J.P. Morgan bumped up its price target on the stock to $200 from $160 but maintained its Neutral rating.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley nearly doubled its price target to $200 from $110, but maintained its Equal-weight rating.

"We continue to believe that for APP to sustain its growth targets, it would need to drive the majority of industry growth in the more than $100B global mobile gaming market," said Morgan Stanley analysts, led by Matthew Cost, in an investor note. "We view sustainability there as challenging to underwrite as a base case… even in light of APP's very strong results in '24. On the ecommerce side, while there are more unanswered questions about the differentiation and scalability of APP's product, we continue to view the TAM expansion as potentially highly compelling."

Other ad tech companies saw modest to no gains on Thursday, with The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD) up 2% and Magnite (NASDAQ:MGNI) down 0.5%.