Reddit, the link‑aggregation forum that pulls more than half of U.S. internet users each week, floated at $34 a share in March 2024. Its stock now trades around five times the IPO price, placing the company solidly in social media’s second tier as it heads into its first‑quarter earnings release Thursday for investors today.

SensorTower estimates daily active users just above 120 million, while New Street Research projects 131 million by 2027. Analysts are split: 23 of 34 Bloomberg‑tracked analysts rate the stock a buy, 11 hold, and one sell. Yet Rothschild & Co’s Redburn team warns that Reddit’s reliance on browser traffic hampers ad engagement and leaves it vulnerable to search‑engine and AI summarisation and may dampen revenue outlook now.

The platform’s AI‑licensing disputes with Perplexity and Anthropic underscore a tension between monetising its massive discussion corpus and preserving the “distinctly human” community feel. Without a robust app‑centric strategy, advertisers may divert spend to rivals offering richer profiling. As earnings loom, Reddit must decide whether to double‑down on ad growth or reshape its product to lock users inside its ecosystem.