NH Investment & Securities said on the 28th that for NCSOFT, the new title Aion 2 is logging stable results, and that introducing a proprietary payment system for existing games is producing fee-saving effects. It raised its target price to 320,000 won from 300,000 won and maintained a Buy rating. NCSOFT's closing price in the previous session was 213,500 won.
Despite initial concerns, Aion 2 is gaining a solid foothold in the market more than a week after launch. In the first week, Aion 2 saw 2,527,698 characters created, 275,867 accounts purchasing memberships, and 556,433 characters purchasing appearance items. NCSOFT had released that in the early days after launch, daily active users (DAU) exceeded 1.5 million and the share of PC payments was over 90%.
As of the previous day, in the Google App Store revenue rankings, Aion 2 was No. 6. Lineage M was No. 12, and Lineage 2M was No. 37.
Ahn Jae-min, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said, "Although NCSOFT's major mobile games saw their revenue rankings fall because they introduced PC payment systems, actual revenue based on payments appears unchanged."
Considering this, Aion 2 appears to be posting average daily revenue of more than 1.5 billion won.
They also noted fee savings. Ahn said, "Starting this month, by introducing proprietary payment systems for existing games, the company can save 112.1 billion won in fees," and "next year's fee payout rate is expected to fall to 20.3% from 25.4%."
He added, "The new-release momentum has faded, but we set a higher target price in light of earnings growth."