The recent merger between NetEase and Warcraft has attracted high market attention. According to the latest report, NetEase's Dashen platform announced that the number of people who returned to make reservations for its game World of Warcraft on the servers in Chinese Mainland has exceeded 500000.
At the same time, NetEase, Blizzard, and Microsoft jointly announced the resumption of cooperation yesterday, and Blizzard's domestic server is expected to return this summer. In addition, Microsoft Games and NetEase have reached an agreement to try to bring new NetEase games to Xbox and other platforms.
Institutions claim that restarting cooperation will help NetEase's gaming business grow
Recently, the re cooperation between NetEase and Blizzard has received positive feedback from some securities firms, who believe that their cooperation and global layout in the gaming field will bring new growth opportunities to the company.
Open Source Securities believes that this collaboration can not only bring about revenue and performance growth for NetEase after the game goes online, but also promote wider cooperation between NetEase and giants such as Blizzard and Microsoft, launch more collaborative products, thereby enhancing NetEase's brand value and helping its global strategic layout.
Therefore, Open Source Securities has raised its profit forecast for NetEase for the next three years, and it is expected that the net profit attributable to shareholders from 2024 to 2026 will reach 33.9 billion yuan, 37.3 billion yuan, and 40.4 billion yuan, respectively.
JPMorgan Chase pointed out that this collaboration will bring NetEase an additional 1% and 3% growth potential in gaming revenue for the next two years, especially with a more significant impact on PC gaming. Although the gross profit margin of the cooperative products may be lower than that of NetEase's self-developed games, JPMorgan Chase believes that this move will still bring NetEase 1% to 2% profit growth space, which will help offset the negative impact that the PC version of "Fantasy Westward Journey" may face in the near future.
In addition, JPMorgan Chase is also optimistic about the cooperation prospects between NetEase and Microsoft in game distribution, which is expected to bring growth potential to NetEase's international game revenue, especially in the US and European markets. Therefore, JPMorgan Chase recommends investors to increase their holdings in NetEase stocks before the launch of the new game and maintain a target price of HKD 200 for NetEase H-shares.
Bank of Communications International believes that although Blizzard's resumption of cooperation has limited impact on NetEase's short-term performance, the agreement with Microsoft will be beneficial for the long-term cooperation of both parties in overseas markets. The agreement to promote the launch of NetEase's new games on platforms such as XBOX will help NetEase's multi terminal layout in overseas markets.
Bank of Communications International predicts that the return of Blizzard National Service in the second half of the year will drive the growth of online gaming revenue in 2024 and 2025. The growth rate of online gaming in the second half of the year is expected to recover to over 20%, with an increase of 2% to 3% in the company's total revenue for the year, but the impact on profits is relatively limited.
Although China International Capital Corporation (CICC) pointed out that some games on NetEase have performed slightly weakly recently, it still believes that the restart of Blizzard's domestic server will have a positive impact on NetEase's revenue, and maintains its target price for NetEase at HKD 211.