DAISHIN SECURITIES projected on the 26th that as the year-end approaches, KRAFTON's strong performance and new release momentum would strengthen. It maintained a 'top pick' recommendation for the gaming stocks, an investment opinion of 'buy,' and a target price of 540,000 won. KRAFTON's closing price the previous day was 330,000 won.
KRAFTON is currently conducting various updates to align with the high season in the third quarter after finishing the off-season in the second quarter. The average revenue ranking for PUBG on Steam rebounded from 10th place in the second quarter to 4.6th place in the current third quarter.
Lee Ji-eun, a researcher at DAISHIN SECURITIES, noted, "Considering that the Bugatti collaboration, which has received a positive response from users, will continue until mid-September, the Steam revenue ranking for PUBG is likely to remain high," adding, "However, traffic seems to have stagnated in the low 700,000 range."
He further predicted that in the second half of this year, an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) through various collaborations is expected to drive revenue growth in the institutional sector for PCs.
In particular, strong performance in the third quarter is expected to be led by the mobile sector. This researcher stated, "In particular, the mobile sector is maintaining high ranks despite the release of competing new titles in China, which is believed to be due to the influence of the Porsche collaboration that started in July."
He projected that Chinese revenue could once again reach the level achieved in the first quarter this year, which recorded strong performance through the Lunar New Year and the in-game roadmap update. KRAFTON's PUBG is maintaining a high revenue ranking through collaborations like Transformers in major global regions such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
KRAFTON's mobile revenue for the first quarter of this year was 532.5 billion won, marking the first time it surpassed the 500 billion won threshold and reached an all-time high. It is also projected that mobile revenue in the third quarter could reach around 500 billion won.
This researcher stated, "In the fourth quarter, various collaborations related to PUBG's intellectual property (IP) are planned, which may enable growth of over 20% compared to the previous year," adding, "After that, the anticipation for new titles is expected to be reflected in the stock price."