[Click eStock] "HYBE, 3Q Earnings Expectations Should Be Lowered but 4Q Is Promising"

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Hwajeong] Samsung Securities maintained a 'Buy' rating and a target price of 380,000 KRW for HYBE on the 18th, stating that while the third-quarter earnings for this year need to be lowered, the fourth-quarter performance is expected to be favorable.

Samsung Securities estimated HYBE's third-quarter revenue to be 340 billion KRW, a 78.9% increase compared to the same period last year, and operating profit to be 68 billion KRW, up 69.4%, but expected it to fall short of the market consensus of 75.1 billion KRW. Deferred recognition from the previous quarter, such as 'BTS 2021 Muster Sowoozoo' and collaboration MD products with McDonald's, were accounted for, and album sales from BTS's 'Butter' with 2.88 million copies released during the quarter, as well as albums from TXT, ENHYPEN, and other HYBE Labels artists, were estimated to total about 5 million copies. Minha Choi, a researcher at Samsung Securities, explained, "Another important performance indicator attracting attention is the monthly active users (MAU) of Weverse. In the third quarter, artists with strong fandoms such as BLACKPINK, MADMONSTER, STAYC, Lil Huddy, PURPLE KISS, and fromis_9 joined the platform, so an improvement compared to the previous quarter is expected. However, except for SEVENTEEN's online fan meeting held on August 30, the absence of large-scale events and content such as online concerts means the financial results themselves will be modest."

The fourth-quarter performance is considered noteworthy. First, BTS concerts are scheduled. In South Korea, under quarantine guidelines, one online concert will be held via Weverse on the 24th, and four offline concerts will take place at the SoFi Stadium in LA on November 27-28 and December 1-2. Album sales performance in the fourth quarter is also anticipated. SEVENTEEN, making a comeback with their 9th mini-album 'Attacca' on the 22nd, surpassed 1.41 million pre-orders domestically and internationally on the first day of pre-sale, exceeding the initial sales of 1.36 million copies of their previous 8th mini-album. ENHYPEN, who debuted on November 30 last year, released their first full-length album 'DIMENSION: DILEMMA' on the 12th, with pre-orders reaching approximately 930,000 copies during the reservation period.

Researcher Choi said, "The inclusion of top-tier artists will expand influence within the fandom community platform market, and the resumption of offline concert markets will drive performance improvements," adding, "As the activities of major artists grow, it is also expected that revenue model expansion utilizing intellectual property (IP) will be actively pursued."

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