KB Securities noted on the 13th that ECHOMARKETING is expected to continue its high growth in the advertising institutional sector. It maintained its investment rating of 'buy' and raised the target price from 10,000 won to 17,000 won, a 70% increase. The closing price of ECHOMARKETING the previous day was 14,540 won.
ECHOMARKETING recorded an operating profit of 19.4 billion won in the second quarter of this year. This is a 22.8% increase compared to the same period last year, and it exceeds the consensus (market forecast) by 33%.
Choi Yong-hyun, a researcher at KB Securities, said, "ECHOMARKETING's performance is attributed to the growth in the advertising institutional sector," and added, "The advertising institutional sector has shown significant revenue growth and high profitability through acquiring new clients, increased marketing from existing advertisers, and efficiency improvements using artificial intelligence (AI) agents."
He believed that especially ECHOMARKETING's advertising business is largely unaffected by the economy, leaving room for upside.
Researcher Choi explained, "ECHOMARKETING's advertising business has a high proportion of performance advertising," adding, "Performance advertisers can achieve high results from their advertisements, so there are no limits on advertising expenditure. In other words, as long as ECHOMARKETING performs well, the volume of advertising contracts will continue to increase."
According to researcher Choi, ECHOMARKETING is expanding the scope of its advertising clients by utilizing AI, thereby increasing the overall volume of contracts, enhancing production efficiency, and also improving profitability. He also noted that the cost per sale (CPS) advertising through Andar is expected to increase.
Meanwhile, ECHOMARKETING recently expressed its intention for shareholder returns through a stock buyback of 5 billion won. Researcher Choi analyzed that "in the future, ECHOMARKETING's shareholder return policy is expected to exceed 50% of the previous net income."