Activision Blizzard Price Target: $100

Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) is a video game holding company founded in 2008 as a result of a merger between Activision Inc. and Vivendi Games. It owns some of the very famous gaming titles such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush Saga, Diablo, and Warcraft. It develops games for all key platforms including mobile, game consoles, and PCs. Moreover, it also conducts eSports leagues and tournaments to generate revenue, besides making money from ads and in-game content.

The Santa Monica, California-based game publisher has enjoyed tremendous growth over the past year as the global video game industry thrived during 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Stuck-at-home gamers spent more time playing video games during the pandemic that drove revenue for gaming stocks including ATVI. The company’s revenue in the previous quarter climbed 38 percent on a year-over-year basis to $1.28 billion. Moreover, it also raised its revenue outlook for the full year from $7.25 billion to $7.67 billion.

CEO Bobby Kotick said in an interview last year that the company plans to hire at least 2,000 people to meet production demands. Meanwhile, Activision plans to launch more games for mobile devices to capitalize on the massive mobile user base. Its chief operating officer Daniel Alegre said in a statement that ATVI will gradually bring all its games to mobile.

Activision’s games performed exceptionally well in 2020. The company announced last month that its “Call of Duty” franchise hit a record $3 billion in total bookings over the past 12 months. Looking forward, it plans to launch highly anticipated “Overwatch 2” and “Diablo 4” for PC and “Diablo Immortal” for mobile.

Analysts are also bullish on ATVI, with majority of them recommending investors to “Buy” the stock. The consensus price target for ATVI is $100, higher than its current trading price of around $90. Meanwhile, the company recently announced that it will release its financial results for Q4 on February 4.