$DUOL · The Motley Fool · 2026-11-04
Duolingo新增1250万月活跃用户，几乎相当于此前五个季度之和，日活跃用户接近6500万——我认为这是一个拐点，为未来增长奠定基础，尽管营收增长并未出现拐点且营业利润下降。我预计这部分用户基础将随时间推移实现变现，营收增长将从13.7%重新加速，到2027年底升至约30%；我认为AI是顺风因素，并称该股潜力巨大，但批评管理层未动用其4亿美元的股票回购授权。
逐段跳播
我们接下来会谈到 AMD 的业绩，这多少和我们在聊的半导体交易有关，但我确实想聊聊今天的大涨股 Duolingo。你持有它的股票吗？我知道我们之前聊过 Duolingo。你持有 Duolingo 的股票吗？
We will get to AMD's results which uh kind of tie into what we're talking about with the semiconductor trade, but I do want to talk about the big mover for the day, Dualingo. Do you own share?
I know we've talked about Dualingo before. Do you own shares of Duolingo?
我以前持有过它的股票。我现在不持有，但就像我在开播前跟你说的，我已经连续打卡 421 天了。看看这波走势，简直太疯狂了。我觉得这甚至还没完全更新，但过去一周涨了 25%。今天的涨幅目前是 31%。最高到过 3435。
So, I used to own shares. I don't own shares, but like I told you before we went live, I have a 421 day streak going on. Uh look at this move. just just crazy. This isn't even fully updated, I don't think, but 25% over the past week.
Uh the move today is 31% right now. It's been as high as 3435.
这份财报很有意思。顺便说一句，如果你没听过、如果你还没听过 Duolingo 的电话会议，我一直觉得 Luis Fonan 是最值得一听的 CEO 之一。所以，那总是一场信息量很大的电话会议。
他似乎对这门生意是什么、他们未来要做什么有着非常清晰的把握。如果你回看两三个季度前，再看这个季度的业绩，他们已经明确告诉过你会发生什么、他们会聚焦什么、结果会是什么，以及之后的衡量指标是什么。
Um interesting report. By the way, if you don't listen to if you haven't listened to Dualingo conference calls, I always find Luis Fonan to be one of the most interesting uh CEOs to listen to.
So, um it it's just it's it's always an informative conference call. seems to have a really clear grasp on what that business is, what they're going to do in the future. And so if you go back two or three quarters, look at the results this quarter, they have told you exactly what's going to happen, uh what they're going to focus on, what the result is going to be, and then what the markers are.
有意思的地方在于，如果你看营收数字，这些只是季度数字。你在这里看不到太多——增长并没有出现拐点。所以市场反应的不是这个。市场实际上并不是在针对第三季度的财务业绩本身做出反应。营收是 3109 百万美元。
营业利润实际上下降了。原因有几个。他们的 AI 支出上升了，因为他们开始把一些 AI 对话功能移到免费层，而且我认为他们甚至给付费层提供了更多使用量。所以那里的利润率略有下降。
他们认为随着时间推移——他们给出过一些关于过去一年成本下降的惊人数据，大概是 99.7% 之类的——所以我认为这很可能让他们的产品更有吸引力，但这正在损害他们的财务表现。他们还因为一些人达成了某些目标而发放了奖金，他们最大的目标，也是希望这个季度大家能关注的那个数字，就是月活跃用户。
这里有意思的是，直到大约一年、一年多以前，增长都相当稳定，然后他们这个季度新增的月活跃用户几乎——那是多少来着——1250 万，比之前五个季度加起来还多。所以他们在 2025 年 3 月到 2026 年 6 月之间增加了大约 1000 万，然后在这最后一个季度增加了 1250 万。
所以他们在最近几次电话会议上说的是，我们一直在聚焦变现。所以这就是为什么他们的营收在上升，但基本上他们的漏斗顶部没有以同样的速度增长。所以他们说，嘿，我们得专注于让更多人进来、让更多人使用这个平台。
另一个要看的数据是一个巨大的拐点，就是日活跃用户现在接近 6500 万。这是巨大的跃升——之前增长率有点走平，过去几个季度略有回升，但这是一个重要迹象，说明人们在使用 Duolingo 更多了。
另一件事是，你在付费数字上还不太看得到这一点，因为接下来会发生的是，从漏斗顶部进来的人开始使用这个平台。他们不会第一次使用 Duolingo 就付费。他们可能用一个月、三个月、六个月或随便多久，然后开始从中获得越来越多的价值。
然后你就开始——所以你希望的是更大的漏斗顶部，而这正是他们这个季度所展示的，也正是市场在反应的东西。市场反应的不是——这些数字很惊艳。市场实际上反应的是，我们确实认为这为他们 2027 年及以后的未来增长打下了相当好的基础。
So the interesting thing here is if you look at the revenue numbers, these are just quarterly numbers. You don't see a lot of there's not an inflection in growth here. So that's not what the market is reacting to.
It's actually not reacting to the third quarter financial results per se. So, $3109 million in revenue. Operating income actually declined. A couple of reasons for that. Uh, their AI spending was up because they started to move some of their AI conversation stuff to the free tier and actually I think even gave more usage to the paid tier.
So, you're having a little bit lower margins there. you know they think over time I mean they've g given some crazy stats about uh the cost reductions over the past year it's like you know 99.7% or something like that so I think that makes their probably makes their product more compelling uh but it's hurting their financials they also gave bonuses to people for meeting some of their goals their biggest goal and the the number that hopefully people are kind of gravitating towards this this quarter this is the monthly active users so the interesting Same thing here is it was pretty consistent growth until about a year a little over a year ago and then they added more monthly active users this quarter nearly what is that 12 and a.5 million than they did in the previous five quarters combined.
So they added about 10 million between March 2025 and June 2026 and then 12 a.5 million in this most this last quarter. So what they're what they have said in the last couple of conference calls is we've been focusing on monetizing.
So that's why their their revenue was going up but then their basically their top of funnel was not growing at the same pace. So they said hey we got to focus on getting more people in more people using the platform.
The other metric to look at this is a huge inflection is daily active users now at almost 65 million. So that's a huge jump from we you know that didn't that flatlined a little bit uh growth rates you know kind of picked up a little bit in the past couple of quarters but this is a big indication that people are using Dualingo more.
The other thing is you're not quite seeing that yet in the paid number because what you're going to have is people coming in that top of the funnel starting to use the platform.
They don't start paying for Dualingo the first time they use it. they maybe use it for a month or three months or six months or whatever and they start to get more and more value from it.
Uh and then you know you start so so what you want to have is a bigger top of funnel and that's what they've shown that they've done this quarter and that is exactly what the market is reacting to.
It's not reacting to you know these numbers were phenomenal. It's actually reacting to we actually think this sets them up pretty well for future growth in 2027 and beyond.
对。所以股价暴跌正是它今天上涨的原因，因为当初他们刚开始转型时，传递出的信号是：我们现在更专注于扩大用户基数，而不是变现用户基数，市场显然不喜欢这个。股价跌了下去，然后我认为在接下来的几个季度，大概两三个季度里，我们看到了这种情况：变现下降了，但用户基数并没有像预期那样增长，所以市场当时是免费的，哦，现在你变现更少了，而且你连增长都没那么快了，而昨天情况反转了。
昨天他们确实实现了相当大的增长，我对他们从用户基数中获得的增长幅度仍然感到相当惊喜。我不知道他们是不是搞了什么特别促销或活动之类的。但现在第二步要登场了，就是留住用户，并随着时间推移对他们进行变现。
我认为月活跃用户转化为日活跃用户的比例也在小幅上升，我记得从41%升到了42%。付费订阅用户渗透率确实略有下降，但就像你说的，当你想先扩大免费用户、然后再考虑变现时，这是正常的。
所以目前来看，A计划似乎正在奏效，他们现在正迈入第二部分。这就是你刚才说的，市场当时是在对营收增长数字开始放缓做出反应，而第一个迹象将是你的日活跃用户和月活跃用户漏斗不再像以前那样快速增长。
但市场最讨厌看到的是增长减速。所以这很可能是一个领先指标。所以股价会在增长率真正开始显示出减速迹象之前就先下跌。这就是为什么它从，是多少来着，差不多600跌到了100以下？我记得4月份是90多。
然后这里的想法是，希望如果事情大致按计划、按我们讨论的方向发展，你就会开始看到增长率加速。所以现在你从第二季度或第三季度13.7%的增长率，有可能回升到接近30%的增长率，也许到2027年底吧。
我记得那是其中一些，我不记得了，我昨天听了大部分财报电话会，但我知道几个季度前他们谈到过，2027年底的数字是他们大致追求的目标。我忘了具体是什么，好像是30亿美元营收流水，以及7亿美元调整后EBITDA流水。
那将是一个相当稳固的位置，也能显示出我们所说的那种加速。所以我不知道。我觉得情况相当不错。这是我的失望之处。我其实刚发了一个视频讲这个，但管理层没有回购股票，最近这个季度几乎没回购任何股票。
他们确实，我记得是两个季度前，批准了4亿美元的授权，然后什么也没做。他们有14亿美元现金就躺在资产负债表上，完全没动。如果你认为你的业务会好转、股票极其便宜，而且看看我们今天在哪？
市盈率是55倍。市自由现金流是19倍。你知道，六个月前它的交易价格是多少，12倍自由现金流。如果你认为你会重新加速增长，那就把那4亿美元砸进市场，回购一大堆股票。我不，这是我不理解的一点。
我认为他们在经营业务方面做得非常好，但他们从未出现自由现金流为负。所以从来不存在，问题是你要在资产负债表上持有14亿美元现金并让它增长，还是真正用这笔钱做点什么、减少你的股本，把它降到10亿美元。
你不需要在资产负债表上放10亿美元来运营Duolingo。所以这对我来说是个奇怪的决定。我理解保留现金余额，因为资产负债表上有未实现收入。你不想处于这样一种境地：你有5亿美元的未实现收入，而资产负债表上只有5000万美元现金。但我不知道，这就是我唯一的失望之处。
Yeah. So the the the crash in stock price is the reason why the stock is up today because when they initially initially pivoted, it was sending a message to we're now focused more on growing the user base and less on monetizing the user base and market clearly didn't like it.
Stock went down and then I think for the next couple of quarters, two, three quarters or so, we've seen that that happening. We we seen the monetization go down but the user base not really growing as expected and so the market was free for oh now you're monetizing less and you're not even growing as quickly and yesterday that that flipped.
So yesterday they did manage to grow quite a lot which I'm still quite pleasantly shocked by by the amount of growth that they managed to to find from the user base. I don't know if they had some special promotions or or events or anything like it.
But now step two comes into play is keep the users and monetize them over over time. I think the the conversion of monthly to to daily is also increasing a bit. I think it went from 41 to 42%.
Uh paid subscriber penetration did drop a bit, but like you said, that's normal when you want to increase first the free one and then you're only going to think about monetization.
So as of right now seems like plan the plan A is working and they're now stepping up to part part number two. This is what you were talking about is the market was reacting to the revenue growth number starting to slow and the first indication here is going to be that your daily active users and monthly active users funnel is is not growing as quickly as it once was.
But what the market hates seeing is deceleration of growth. Uh so and it's going to be a leading indicator most more more likely than not. So the the stock starts falling before the growth rate actually uh uh starts to show that indication that it's it's starting to decelerate.
And that's why it went from was it what was it almost 600 down to under 100? I think it was 90 something in April. Um and then the the idea here hopefully uh you know if things kind of go according to plan and according to what we're we're talking about is you would start to see an acceleration in that rate of growth.
So now you go from a 13.7% growth rate in the second quarter or in the third quarter to you know potentially up to back towards that 30% growth rate in maybe let's say by the end of 2027.
I think that was some of the um I don't remember I don't I got through most of the conference call yesterday, but I I know a couple of quarters ago they talked about that the numbers exiting 2027 is what they were kind of they were shooting for.
I forget what it was like three billion dollars in in revenue run rate and like 700 million in adjusted Ibita run rate. That'd be a pretty solid position to be in and would show that acceleration um then that uh that we're talking about.
So I don't know. I thought things were pretty good. The Here's here's my disappointment. I actually just put up a video about this, but management didn't buy back stock, bought back barely any stock in this most recent quarter.
They did, I think it was two quarters ago, did a $400 million authorization and then did nothing with it. They got $1.4 billion worth of cash just sitting on the balance sheet doing absolutely nothing.
If you think that your business is going to turn around in the stock is extremely cheap and even like where are we at today? We're at price earnings multiple is 55. So you know and price of free cash flow is 19.
So you know six months ago it was trading for what 12 times free cash flow. If you think you're going to reacelerate growth just like dump that $400 million into the market and just buy back a whole bunch of stock.
I don't that's the one part I don't get. I I think they've done a really good job operating the business, but they never went to free cash flow negative. So, there was never a there was it was going to be are you going to have $1.4 billion in cash on the balance sheet and growing or are you going to like actually use that to do something and reduce your share count and just drop it down to a billion dollars.
You don't need a billion dollars on the balance sheet to run Dualingo. It's so it's a it's a weird decision to me. I understand keeping B cash balance because there is um unearned revenue on the balance sheet.
You don't want to be in a position where you have $500 million worth of unearned revenue and you only have you know $50 million in cash on the balance sheet. But I don't know that was my one disappoint.
对。不，说得有道理。我认为如果他们能踩准底部，那本来会相当不错，但我不认为他们能踩准底部。不过是的，股价当时在100或略低于100，现在已经涨了80%，70%了。所以本来可以很好地利用那笔现金，尤其是如果他们批准一个新的回购计划的话。
Yeah. No, fair point. I think it could have been quite quite good if they managed to time the bottom but I don't think they can uh they can time the bottom. But yeah, the stock was at 100 or just under it and now now it's up 80 80% 70% since.
So could have used that cash uh quite well especially when if you authorize uh a new buyback program.
这里有一条关于利用率的评论，而持久付费利用率是不同的。他们在这么多产品上进行了多元化。似乎有一种模式：用户增加了，但付费用户和持久用户仍然存疑。我认为这里的想法是，我喜欢增加更多产品的原因，数学和国际象棋会是两个大项，就是你想拥有一个更大的捆绑包。
所以你实际上想成为有线电视，对吧？你每月付10美元或20美元，不管Duolingo多少钱。当然，你可能只用一种语言，或者也许只用其中一门其他课程，或者也许你只有一个孩子用它，诸如此类。
但你有很多东西可用，对公司来说，把所有产品放在一个捆绑包里要有价值得多。这就是捆绑经济学的运作方式。这就是为什么这是个好主意。另一件他们谈到、而我实际上在我女儿身上看到的事，是免费模式中的AI使用。
我刚走下楼，她正在跟她的iPad说话，我就想，“你到底在干什么？”她在用Duolingo。所以我认为这是一个非常有趣的例子，说明AI是会带来颠覆，还是会让Duolingo更有价值？
我倾向于后者，因为他们可以做优化之类的事情。他们可以，你知道，你有一个目标市场。比如我不会为她开发一个应用来学，你知道，怎么阅读。她六岁，所以她在学单词之类的。但如果Duolingo来做，那太好了，这是AI的一个很好的用途，让她能够和那些小角色之类的东西对话交流。
所以这是那种我认为AI会成为他们巨大顺风的情况之一。这也让他们的开发更容易等等。但我们拭目以待，看看这个叙事在未来一年是否会改变，这是我认为可能绝对了不起的股票之一。
um there's a comment here about uh utilization and uh durable paid utilization is is different. They've diversified in so many products. uh seems like a pattern of users increase but paid uh and durable users is still in question.
I think the idea here is that what I like about adding more products, you know, math and chess would be kind of the two big ones is you want to have a bigger bundle. So you you actually want to be cable cable TV, right?
where you pay 10 bucks a month or $20 a month, whatever, you know, Dualingo costs. And sure, you only use one language or maybe, you know, one of these other lessons or, you know, maybe only one of your kids uses it, you know, that kind of thing.
But you have so many things available that for the company, it's so much more valuable to have all of the the products under one bundle. So that's the way that bundle economics work.
That's why this is a a good idea. Um, the other thing that they they talked about that I've actually seen with my my daughter is the the AI usage in the in the free mode. So, I just I walked downstairs and she was talking to her iPad and I was like, "What the heck are you doing?"
And she was on Duolingo. Um, so it's I think this is a really interesting example of is AI going to be disruptive or is it going to make Duolingo more valuable? I tend to lean towards the ladder because they can do things like optimize.
They can, you know, you have a targeted market. Like I'm not going to build an app for her to learn, you know, how to read. She's six, so she's like learning words and stuff. Uh, but if Dualingo does it like great, that's a great use of AI for her to be able to talk and converse with the, you know, the little characters and stuff.
So, it's one of those CA cases where I think there that I think AI is going to be a big tailwind for them. It's also making their development easier and all that kind of stuff.
Uh, but we'll see, you know, if that narrative changes over the next year, this is one of those stocks that I think could be could be absolutely tremendous.