Duolingo's 2024 Q4 Earnings: A Record-Breaking Quarter with Strong Growth and Innovation
On February 27th, Duolingo hosted its Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Webcast, providing a detailed update on the company's performance. The webcast was attended by Co-Founder and CEO Luis von Ahn and CFO Matt Skaruppa.
In his opening remarks, Luis von Ahn highlighted the company's remarkable progress since its IPO three years ago. Duolingo has added 30 million daily active users, over 80 million monthly active users, nearly tripled bookings, and achieved a 25.7% adjusted EBITDA margin in 2024.
The Q4 results were particularly impressive, with daily active users reaching 40 million, growing 51% year-over-year. The company also added more new subscribers than ever before and delivered its highest quarterly bookings, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. This outperformance was largely driven by the strong adoption of Duolingo Max subscriptions, including upgrades from current super subscribers and continued momentum in their Family Plan.
Luis von Ahn expressed his excitement about the traction seen with Duolingo Max, particularly since the launch of Video Call, a GenAI-powered conversation feature. User engagement has grown meaningfully, and Max is now available to the majority of daily active users, representing about 5% of total subscribers.
The company's Family Plan has also shown strong results, making up 23% of total subscribers and demonstrating higher retention and LTV than individual plans. Duolingo has three priorities for the year ahead: driving subscription bookings by growing users, improving subscriber conversion, and promoting Duolingo Max; leveraging generative AI to improve the Video Call experience and scale content across language, math, and music courses; and remaining disciplined with investments, balancing strong top-line growth with measured progress toward long-term profitability targets.
In terms of innovation, Luis von Ahn emphasized the importance of using GenAI to deliver a high-quality experience in Duolingo Max. While most AI costs are tied to Video Call and scale based on Max subscriber growth, the company is prioritizing the use of the latest AI models. This will enable them to teach better, especially for more advanced learners.
Duolingo's commitment to innovation extends beyond video call, with a focus on expanding content and courses faster than ever before using AI and automation tools. This includes scaling their math and music courses, which have shown strong early adoption, with a combined 3 million daily active users. The market opportunity in both language learning and other subjects remains substantial, and Duolingo is making strategic investments to fuel growth for years to come.
