Evercore ISI has reiterated an Outperform rating on Duolingo Inc. (NASDAQ:DUOL), maintaining a price target of $330.00. The brokerage's call comes as Duolingo shares change hands around $106.51, close to the company’s 52-week low of $107.16 and approximately 70% below levels from a year ago.
Evercore ISI told clients it anticipates Duolingo will likely produce a modest beat on fourth-quarter results. That expectation is grounded in the company’s January 12 prerelease, intra-quarter datapoints and the firm’s own model sensitivity analysis.
Despite the forecast for a near-term upside surprise, Evercore ISI cautioned that its view on the company’s fiscal year 2026 guidance carries asymmetric risk - with more downside than upside. The research team also reiterated a near-term TAP Underperform call on the stock.
Duolingo operates a language-learning platform that delivers courses across multiple languages through mobile and web applications. On the data platform InvestingPro, the stock appears on a Most Undervalued list, and one tip highlighted by the service notes that the stock’s relative strength index suggests it is in oversold territory.
Other recent analyst actions paint a mixed picture:
- Truist Securities maintained a Buy rating and set a $245 price target, pointing to the company’s progress in applying artificial intelligence to improve product development and personalization.
- DA Davidson trimmed its price target to $170 while keeping a Neutral rating, citing concerns about user growth despite a substantial month-to-month increase in users in January.
- KeyBanc Capital Markets held its Sector Weight rating and expressed reservations about Duolingo’s future growth prospects, noting both a CFO transition and data suggesting a slowdown in growth.
- Citizens left its Market Perform rating unchanged and highlighted Duolingo’s expansion into advertising, where character-led ads have reportedly demonstrated encouraging engagement metrics.
Competitive dynamics are also in play. The recent launch by T-Mobile of a real-time AI translation service has drawn attention as a potential factor affecting language-learning platforms, including Duolingo.
The constellation of analyst views reflects a mixture of optimism about technological improvements and advertising opportunities alongside caution about user-growth sustainability and guidance risk. For investors, the firm-level reiteration from Evercore ISI and the divergent guidance and ratings from other brokerages underscore continuing debate over Duolingo’s path to durable growth.