I would like to remind participants that during this call, management will make forward-looking statements, including without limitation, statements regarding our future performance, market opportunity, growth strategy, and financial outlook. Today's discussion will include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income, cash flow from operations, and free cash flow. We delivered an exceptionally strong fourth quarter with revenue and adjusted EBITDA ahead of guidance, healthy margins, and strong cash flow. Our results highlight continued growth in our underlying business, our leadership position in AI solutions, and the durability of our business model.

For the full year, CTV grew over 50% year-over-year, excluding political, and Activate activity grew over 3x. Over the past year, we made decisive moves to reposition PubMatic for renewed profitable growth. They have strengthened our competitive moat and have positioned us to deliver accelerated double-digit percentage growth for the second half of 2026. These moves represent the first critical steps of our five-year roadmap designed to re-accelerate growth, expand margins, and compound long-term shareholder value.

Our proprietary data, scaled infrastructure, and thousands of deep integrations across buyers and publishers form a real-time execution layer that cannot be replicated by vibe-coded software. First is the magnitude of the secular growth opportunity as digital advertising adopts Agentic AI. As an early AI leader, this unlocks transformative growth for PubMatic long before our peers. With our scale already building in agentic AI, this leading advantage is widening with each transaction enhancing our model's ability to drive improved performance, fueling long-term revenue growth and incremental margin expansion.

What went well
  • Q4 revenue and adjusted EBITDA came in well ahead of guidance, and adjusted EBITDA of $27.8 million expanded the margin to 35% as incremental revenue dropped to profit.
  • Returned to GAAP profitability with Q4 net income of $6.7 million, or $0.14 per diluted share.
  • Excluding political advertising and the legacy DSP, the remaining 83% of Q4 revenue grew 18% year-over-year, led by CTV, mobile app, and emerging revenues.
  • Full-year free cash flow rose 32% to $46 million and operating cash flow rose 10% to $81 million, leaving $145.5 million of cash and zero debt at year-end.
  • For the full year CTV grew over 50% (a fourth straight year), emerging revenues nearly doubled to about 10% of revenue, 50 new DSP partners were added (Q4 mid-market DSP spend up 30%), and the company transacted over 250 agentic deals and launched AgenticOS at CES with WPP Media and Foxtel Media.
What went wrong
  • Americas revenue declined 18% year-over-year in Q4 on tough political comparisons and the large DSP buyer.
  • Full-year 2025 revenue of $282.9 million was down about 3% versus 2024, reflecting the DSP headwind that would not be lapped until Q3 2026.
  • Q1 2026 guidance implied a steep sequential step-down, with revenue of $58-60 million and adjusted EBITDA of roughly breakeven (-$0.5 million to +$1 million) on seasonality, FX, and the DSP.
  • Foreign exchange remained a modest headwind (about $0.5 million in Q4), and 2026 cost of revenue is expected to rise on data-center utility cost pass-throughs.
  • 2026 operating expenses will include the cost of pursuing the company's litigation against Google.

More on PubMatic, Inc.

Reported 2026-02-26 · figures from the PubMatic, Inc. Q4 2025 earnings call.

See how VectorShift works for your firm

Request Demo