The present invention relates to an automatic gain control apparatus and method in a mobile communication system. According to the automatic gain control apparatus of an embodiment of the invention, when downlink signals include both directional beam signals and beam signals traveling in all directions due to the antenna system, different reception gain reference values are used according to whether downlink signals including only the beam signals traveling in all directions are received or downlink signals including the directional beam signals are received, thereby controlling the gain of the received signal. When the downlink signals including the directional beam signals are received, the automatic gain control apparatus can appropriately control the gain of the received signal on the basis of the directional beam signals to prevent saturation of the received signal. Further, in a place where the channel condition between the terminal and the base station is bad, such as the boundaries between the cells, the reception gain is controlled on the basis of the reception gain reference value that is set in correspondence with the beam signal traveling in all directions, which makes it possible to reduce the loss of a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).