[Click eStock] "NCSoft, Strong Expectations for Q3 Earnings"

Korea Investment & Securities Report

[Asia Economy Reporter Minji Lee] Korea Investment & Securities maintained a buy rating and a target price of 1.1 million KRW for NCSoft on the 2nd. This is based on the expectation that NCSoft's third-quarter earnings will significantly increase, considering the game release and update schedule.

NCSoft's third-quarter operating profit is expected to reach 385.4 billion KRW, a 106% increase compared to the same period last year. A positive factor for the third-quarter performance is the success of Trickster M, which was released on the 20th of last month. Trickster M, developed using the online game IP Trickster, safely secured the third place following Lineage M and Lineage 2M during its initial launch. The average daily sales amount is around 1 billion KRW. Ho-yoon Jung, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, said, "Although updates on daily sales should continue steadily in the future, the current results exceed market expectations."

The 4th anniversary update of Lineage 2M, scheduled for early third quarter, is also expected to positively impact sales. During last year's 3rd anniversary update of Lineage 2M, the daily sales increased by 900 million KRW from an average of 1.76 billion KRW in the second quarter to 2.67 billion KRW in the third quarter. Furthermore, the release of Blade & Soul 2 is scheduled for late June to early July, and it is expected to contribute significantly to sales in the third quarter. The estimated daily sales for the first six months after the release of Blade & Soul 2 is 2.35 billion KRW, which is estimated to be 30% lower than Lineage 2M's 3.36 billion KRW.

Researcher Jung explained, "The stock price level of NCSoft is quite attractive when looking three months ahead," adding, "Although the earnings estimates for Blade & Soul 2 may change, the range of change will not be significant."

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