[Click eStock] "NCSoft Focuses on Major New Releases in Q1... Target Price Up 11%"

KTB Investment & Securities Report

[Asia Economy Reporter Minji Lee] KTB Investment & Securities maintained a buy rating on NCSoft on the 14th, citing high investment attractiveness in the first quarter due to the concentration of major new releases, and raised the target price by 11% from the previous level to 1.2 million KRW.

For NCSoft's TricksterM, the main end content is expected to be large-scale competition among users over Treasure Spots. Considering the inclusion of a collision system, the main content is presumed to be territorial battles similar to siege warfare.

Accordingly, KTB Investment & Securities raised the estimated daily average revenue for TricksterM from 500 million KRW to 750 million KRW. Jin-gu Kim, a researcher at KTB Investment & Securities, said, “It has secured clear differentiation points compared to competitor games. Initially, user growth and quests may be the focus, but with a certain time lag, guild wars and territorial battles will be added to sustain revenue.” He added, “The results of this are expected to have a positive effect on the stock price in the first quarter.”

Lineage2M is expected to be simultaneously released in Taiwan and Japan by the end of the first quarter this year. The combined initial daily average revenue estimate for these regions is 1.5 billion KRW, expected to be on par with the current domestic level.

The estimated daily average revenue for Blade & Soul 2 (B&S2) is 1.3 billion KRW. B&S2 is expected to target Asia as the main expansion region outside Korea, and overseas release focused on this region is anticipated to become visible by the end of this year. Researcher Jin-gu Kim explained, “This is shorter than the overseas expansion cycle of Lineage2M, reflecting a strategy to actively pursue new releases and regional expansion.” He added, “Aion2 is expected to record a daily average revenue of 2.5 billion KRW based on a release in the fourth quarter of this year.”

He continued, “Reflecting all investment points, we applied a price-earnings ratio (PER) of 30 times for this year’s fair valuation, which is the highest among domestic game companies, applying a premium compared to global competitors.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.