NetEase shares surge 85% over past nine months, thanks to success of AI-powered MMO game Justice Mobile

NetEase has regained lost ground thanks to the successful launch of its new game Justice Mobile. The company’s stock has now reached a one-year high.

What happened?

• As reported by Bloomberg, NetEase shares have increased by 85% since hitting a low last year. The stock has risen from HKD 84.95 ($10.85) per share on October 28, 2022 to HKD 157.4 ($20.11) per share on July 4.
• NetEase shares have been growing since the Chinese government lifted its game licensing freeze and started approving new titles from local and even foreign companies.
• But the recent growth is also largely due to the success of the company’s three games — Eggy Party, Racing Master, and the recently released Justice Mobile — that topped the highest-grossing mobile titles charts in China on July 2.
• “We think NetEase will do better than most of these online gaming peers on the back of a stronger game pipeline,” Nomura International analyst Jialong Shi said.
• Experts also expect the company to rise another 17%. NetEase currently has a price to estimated earnings ratio (P/E), which is calculated by dividing the price per share by the company’s earnings per share, of 18.7x. It is in line with another Chinese tech giant Tencent.
• However, NetEase’s P/E ratio is still lower than other global game publishers like Activision Blizzard (20.5x), Nintendo (21.4x), Bandai Namco (21.5x), and Capcom (27.9x).

What games are driving NetEase’s growth?

• On June 30, NetEase released Justice Mobile, the mobile version of its MMO game Justice Online. Only available in China, one of its main features is the use of AI and deep learning technologies to generate in-game dialogues and enable unique reactions from NPCs.
• According to AppMagic, Justice Mobile has already reached $10.5 million in revenue (given that Google Play is banned in China, the data only includes the App Store version without third-party Android stores). It also generated nearly 1.8 million downloads.
• The other two chart-topping titles are Eggy Party and Racing Master. The former is a party mobile game, which generated over $180 million from in-app purchases and reached 54.5 million downloads.
• And Racing Party is a racing game, which has surpassed $11 million in revenue and generated over 4.5 million downloads since its launch in June.