[Click eStock] "NCSoft, Target Price Lowered by 14%"

Lineage W's Success Offsets Lineage M and Lineage 2M's Poor Performance
Korea Investment "NCSoft Target Price Lowered from 1.07 Million KRW to 920,000 KRW"

[Asia Economy Reporter Gong Byung-sun] Korea Investment & Securities has lowered the target price for NCSoft by 14%, citing the poor performance of NCSoft's flagship titles such as Lineage M and Lineage 2M.

On the 13th, Korea Investment & Securities maintained its 'Buy' rating on NCSoft but lowered the target price from 1.07 million KRW to 920,000 KRW, a 14% decrease. The previous day's closing price was 604,000 KRW.

The popularity of Lineage W, released in November last year, is being maintained. Although daily sales naturally declined after recording an average daily revenue of 12 billion KRW during the first week after launch, traffic remains steady and user feedback is positive. As a result, the rate of revenue decline is considered significantly more stable compared to previous titles.

However, Lineage M and Lineage 2M are expected to underperform. Korea Investment & Securities estimated that Lineage M's sales in Q4 last year fell 40% quarter-on-quarter to 90 billion KRW, and Lineage 2M's sales dropped 36.7% during the same period to 103 billion KRW.

Jung Ho-yoon, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, explained, "Lineage W is continuing stable performance as expected, but the daily sales of Lineage M and Lineage 2M have significantly decreased compared to the previous quarter, offsetting the success of Lineage W. However, the decline in Lineage M's sales is due to promotional adjustments aimed at extending the lifecycle rather than a decrease in traffic, so the future daily sales trend is expected to be relatively stable."

Meanwhile, Korea Investment & Securities estimated NCSoft's Q4 sales last year to be 669.7 billion KRW, a 19.3% increase year-on-year, and operating profit to be 156.4 billion KRW, a 0.2% decrease during the same period. These figures are 18.14% and 34.83% below the respective market consensus estimates.

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