[Click eStock] "NCSoft Target Price Raised to 310,000 Won"

Yuanta Securities raised the target price of NCSoft to 310,000 KRW on the 2nd and maintained a buy rating.

'Journey of Monarch' is a new PC and mobile game based on the Lineage IP, scheduled for global release on the 5th. It has surpassed 8 million pre-registrations. The game has high completeness and its main customers are past domestic and Taiwanese users who like Lineage. Lee Chang-young, a researcher at Yuanta Securities, said, "It is expected to fill the new sales gap until the release of ‘Aion 2’."

'TL' recently stabilized downward around 100,000 concurrent users. Considering the peak concurrent users of 336,000 in October, total sales for the fourth quarter are expected to be 130 billion KRW (about 40 billion KRW recognized in accounting). Despite low charging burden (ARPPU), sales increased due to traffic growth. Recent responses to the siege battles were also positive. Large-scale content updates are planned for December and March. Sales increase is expected with the addition of weapons. The researcher said, "This revenue strategy is expected to spread as a business model across NCSoft games in the future," adding, "While MMORPGs are becoming stale for domestic users, they are approaching overseas users as a fresh genre." He analyzed that expectations for the overseas success of new MMORPGs are growing. ‘Aion 2’ is progressing smoothly in development and is scheduled to be released in the second half of next year without delay.

It is projected that about 100 employees were reduced cumulatively in the third quarter, about 700 in the fourth quarter, and over 1,000 by the first quarter of 2025. As a result, labor costs in the fourth quarter of this year are expected to increase by about 100 billion KRW including severance pay, but an annual labor cost reduction of about 150 billion KRW is expected next year. Additionally, if the recently discussed reduction in mobile app market fees is reflected, an additional cost reduction of 100 billion to 200 billion KRW is expected to be possible.

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