(Bloomberg) – Nintendo Co. added another $ 3 billion in market value in Tokyo on Monday with retail investors on the indicated Robinhood app to help boost the game maker’s popularity further.
Nintendo has been one of the strongest-performing performances of blue-chip in Japan this year, as the pandemic, along with the release of its smash-hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons game, helped the already high popularity of its Switch -console to stimulate. Shares are up more than 70% from their low in March, and have barely looked back since surpassing the 50,000 yen barrier in June, with revenue blowing past all estimates earlier this month and Nintendo software remaining the dominant sales ranking in Japan.
The stock added another 4.8% on Monday, the largest gain since March 19, with Eiji Kinouchi of Daiwa Securities Co. and mentioned the impact of the stock’s popularity among U.S. retail investors.
“Like Nintendo, Robinhood users like Sony Corp. and SoftBank Group Corp. have shares in Japan, but both have connections with China,” Kinouchi said in an interview. “Nintendo is one of the easiest Japanese stocks for Robinhood investors to buy amid concerns over tensions in the US-China.”
In an August 5 report, featuring data from the now-defunct Robintrack site, Kinouchi revealed that Nintendo was the second most-held Japanese stock among Robinhood users, after Sony and ahead of SoftBank.
Monday’s gains also follow a report in the Taipei-based Economic Daily News that Nintendo may launch a new version of its Switch console early next year, referring to unidentified people in the supply chain. A more powerful version of the console has been rumored in the past.
Investors and gamers are still waiting for Nintendo to unveil their list of games for the rest of the year, with only Pikmin 3 Deluxe, a remake of a seven-year-old Wii U title set to be released in 2020. David Gibson, chief investment officer at Astris Advisory Japan, said in a tweet last week that he hoped the company would hold one of its “Nintendo Direct” online presentations to announce new titles before a management briefing scheduled for Sept. 16.
The interesting bare gaming pipeline comes even as Sony and Microsoft prepare to spend big on their new generations of PlayStation and Xbox consoles that will be released this holiday season.
But for Ace Research Institute analyst Hideki Yasuda, who raised his price target for Nintendo by 6.6% to 67,400 yen, the impact of rival releases on the Switch’s popularity will be limited.
Asia gaming on fire with consumers stuck at home: take over
“Even with the launch of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, Switch’s sales will remain strong,” he wrote in a report published in August 21. “We believe that sales of game consoles will be determined by their design and style, and it “Switch’s advantage, which can be played at any time, will not change.”
Yasuda predicts a minimum of 23 million Switch units sold this year, well above Nintendo’s own forecast of 19 million.
(Updates with report on new Switch model in sixth paragraph.)
Please visit us at bloomberg.com for more articles like this
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
© 2020 Bloomberg LP
