[Click eStock] "HYBE, Excessive Correction is a Buying Opportunity"

IBK Investment & Securities Report

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Minji Lee] IBK Investment & Securities maintained a buy rating and a target price of 500,000 KRW for HYBE on the 7th, highlighting that new businesses are expected to be fully launched this year.

In the fourth quarter of last year, sales and operating profit are expected to reach 406.7 billion KRW and 73.6 billion KRW respectively, representing increases of 30.2% and 32.4% compared to the same period last year. Researcher Hwanwook Lee of IBK Investment & Securities said, “The success of SEVENTEEN's 9th mini album is driving album sales, while BTS's offline concert resumption and the expansion of the fan platform (Weverse) MAU trend are expected to achieve the highest quarterly performance.” Due to the increased proportion of content sales such as online concerts, the operating profit margin is also expected to improve by 0.3 percentage points from the same period last year to 18.1%.

Total album sales in the fourth quarter are estimated to be about 4.76 million copies, a 5% decrease from the previous quarter. SEVENTEEN's 9th mini album, released in October, surpassed 2 million copies in sales, and ENHYPEN's first full album also exceeded 1 million copies, becoming a million-seller within one year of debut.

The total ticket sales for BTS's LA concerts (4 shows), resumed in November last year, reached 210,000 tickets, and the revenue from a single venue ranked second all-time (based on North America). Moreover, the revenue from one online simultaneous streaming concert is estimated to have exceeded at least 15 billion KRW. Additionally, online concerts by SEVENTEEN, TXT, and BTS's ‘In the SOOP’ series contributed to the increase in content sales revenue. Researcher Lee explained, “Considering BTS's hiatus from releasing new albums, album sales results are very positive,” adding, “The growth rate of the MD (merchandise) sector sales is expected to fall short of market expectations due to the logistics crisis in the western United States.”

Starting with game and webtoon releases in the first quarter of this year, new businesses utilizing the intellectual property (IP) of flagship artists are expected to be fully launched by the end of the second quarter with the release of NFT (non-fungible token) products. NFT products are expected to include photo cards and limited edition digital music, and will likely be distributed through a separate fandom-based trading platform. Researcher Hwanwook Lee said, “It is too early to conclude the success of the new business, but given the diverse and abundant fandoms worldwide, it will have a significant impact on performance improvement,” adding, “The excessive stock price adjustment due to the current global stock market uncertainty presents a good investment opportunity.”

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