First of all, remember that the financial results of this company are influenced by the delays in the launching of its video games, which are highly anticipated by the public. Such announcements could therefore have a negative impact on the price of its shares.
The closing of the company’s accounts takes place at the end of the month of March since the company makes most of its sales between September and January. You should therefore take into account this seasonality when taking a decision.
The universe of core gaming, especially on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, should be carefully followed since it is the major axis of development of Ubisoft.
The group put in place a plan to generate 2.2 billion euros of revenue by doubling the operating margin to more than 20% and a cash flow of more than 300 million euros in 2016 for a period of 3 years. The achievement or non-achievement of this objective will of course have a significant influence on this title on the stock market. The group has already achieved its objective for the period of 2016-2017 with a turnover of 1.7 billion euros and a current profit which reaches 230 million euros.
Ubisoft is a company specialized in the development and edition of video games and software. It is currently one of the leaders in this market. Its activity divides therefore into several sectors which are mainly; the creation, development and production of video games, but also the operation of third party software licenses and the distribution of video games of third-party publishers.
The turnover of this company is mainly generated in North America, but it also comes from Europe from the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Ubisoft is one of the biggest companies in the world of video games and it gains a little more part in the market every day against its competition. But who are exactly its main competitors? This is what we are going to discover here with details about the major video games design companies and their classification according to their importance on the market.
Ubisoft also has two other main competitors, they are the publishers and designers: Nintendo and Microsoft. These two companies have in fact several franchises adapted to the products produced by the publishers and are therefore real threats for Ubisoft which must remain competitive to avoid being evicted.
Taking into account the results and especially the news of the competition, you will be more able to anticipate the changes in price of Ubisoft’s shares.
In 2013, Ubisoft announced the signing of an agreement with the board game publisher, Hasbro. This allowed the French company to publish titles such as Risk, Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit for consoles.
Coca-Cola then renovated a partnership with Ubisoft in 2014. Which had a worldwide success with Just Dance, a console game created in 2009 that sold more than 50 million units, including 3.6 million just in France
Ubisoft and Sony established a partnership for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) with the game “Assassin’s Creed Syndicate” as a theme, aiming to offer original content on PlayStation 4. “Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’ for PS4 came out on October 23, 2015.
Ubisoft share price is currently listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris market in France and is part of the calculation of the stock index NEXT 150.
In addition to the different historical stock market data that we mentioned before, which will help you in the implementation of your strategies and your analyses, we invite you to find out some additional information concerning Ubisoft and its position on the stock market, here.
To understand how does the price of Ubisoft shares reacts to the different economic and financial announcements, you should dive into its recent history with the most important events of recent years. So, here is a summary of these last events:
This data, combined with the main price variation of this title on the historical trading charts will allow you to understand how the title responds to the fundamental data and thus anticipate the future price variations of this title.
You probably know the company Ubisoft for being one of the world’s leading creators of video games. But what you must not know much about, is that the company also carries out other activities in fields related to its main activity and which has allowed it to expand to different markets. Here are the details of the other activities exerted by Ubisoft:
Comics: Since 2009, the group Ubisoft has been running its own comics publishing house named the Two Kingdoms, its name is directly inspired by the video game published by the group Prince of Persia. This company is in charge of designing comics inspired by the group’s video games as it did with the famous Assassin’s Creed. For this, the company has created partnerships with several publishing houses such as the house Dupuis, Dargaud and Le Lombard which are in charge of diffusing its creations and providing their advice. Among the comics that have made Ubisoft’s publishing house famous we can mention of course the series Assassin’s Creed, as well as Raving Rabbids, Might &Magic Heroes and Watch Dogs whose video games have been a huge success among the public.
The audiovisual with cinema and television: thanks to Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the group Ubisoft launched its own productions in 2011 by adapting the versions of some of its video games to the small and big screen. In 2008, the company had already acquired the company Hybrid Technologies, which specializes in the creation of visual effects for the cinema, television and advertising. This was actually the first step in the creation of its studios. The tv show Raving Rabbids: Invasion, diffused on tv in 2013 in the United States and France was the first major production of this subsidiary. Then came its first movie for the big screen; Assassins’s Creed, made in 2016 with Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender.
Leisure and entertainment with amusement parks and theme parks: the story started in 2013 with the opening of a new attraction at the Futuroscope Park, co-created by Ubisoft and Motion Pictures, this attraction used the world of Raving Rabbids as its theme. Three years later in 2016, Ubisoft inaugurated in Montreal its first theme park with this same world as its theme, the park extended on a surface of more than 1400 m2. Always in 2016, the French company the Game used the license of Assassins’ Creed to create, in collaboration with Ubisoft a new scape room, which used the world of an emblematic game of the group called “The Treasure of the Knight Templar” as its theme. The group Ubisoft also plans to open an amusement park which will have the world of its most popular games Kuala Lumpur as its theme in 2020.
When doing your analysis about the price of Ubisoft’s shares, we recommend you to carefully follow the development of these activities, which could have an important influence on the observed trends.
One of the main advantages of Ubisoft is of course, its position in the world of video games, since it is the third largest independent publisher in the world. The success of this group is mostly due to some of its very popular licenses such as Assassin’s Creed, Just Dance, Watch Dogs, Far Cry or the saga of Tom Clancy with Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Rainbow6 and the Division. Ubisoft is particularly well positioned on the so called “open world” games category, which has been very successful for several years now and represent more than 60% of shares in the market of video games industry against only 16% in 2008 with among others the games Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Watch Dogs. Ubisoft is present and evidently well represented in all the different segments of the world of video games with consoles integrating the blockbusters of the group, the free to play on PC with the games Ghost Recon Online in particular, but also the games for mobile phones with the famous Rayman. Ubisoft also bought the mobile game publisher Ketchapp, who created the game 2048.
Ubisoft has also had an increase in shares on the market in the last years with not less than 33% on PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The group has also invested a lot in the digital domain, which currently generates the majority of the company’s turnover (75% of its turnover). The group’s shares on the market in the United States rose to 10%, which is twice of what they had in 2015 and it increase to 14.3% in the European market. The demand of video games in the United States has particularly benefited from the loss of value of the euro against the American dollar and now accounts for nearly 40% of the group’s total sales.
But of course, Ubisoft shares does not only have advantages its also has some disadvantages. We can mention in particular, that it remains difficult for investors to anticipate accurately the results of this company because of a dispersion of the market consensus in this sector of activity. Ubisoft also faces strong competition concerning high-end video games with an increase in its cost of production and significant pressure on the prices for casual games.
Moreover, it is regrettable that the group is not positioned correctly on the sector of massive multi-player online games like most of its major competitors.
Concerning the company’s recent results, they were rather disappointing concerning the sales of the blockbuster Assassins’s Creed in 2015. The group was expecting to make a reboot of this franchise in the near future and put this production on hold. The company’s free cash-flow was also degraded by the launching of the two AAA games in 2016, which caused concern among investors regarding the fast turnaround of its value.
In summary, even if Ubisoft presents real advantages for investors and seems confident about its future, you should carefully follow its news and results before making your mind about its growth prospects on the long-term.
Ubisoft is currently listed on compartment A of the Euronext Paris market and is one of France's largest market capitalizations. It is therefore included in the benchmark CAC All Shares index but not in the CAC 40. However, it is also included in the composition of other stock market indices, including the CAC All Tradable, CAC Large 60, CAC Next 20, Euronext 100, PEA, SBF 120 and the Stoxx France 50.
In 2020, the Ubisoft group did not pay a dividend to its shareholders. The return on this stock for this period is therefore also a negative return at -0.09. It should also be noted that the group currently holds €1,322 million in shareholders' equity. The absence of a dividend is due to the fact that the company recorded a deficit of 124 million euros for the year 2019.
In 2020, the Ubisoft group's shareholding structure will be split between different types of private shareholders, with the Guillemot Family still holding 17.79% of the company's shares, JP Morgan Chase & Co bank holding 11.09% of the shares, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank with 9.49% of the shares, Tencent Holding with 5.01% of the shares, Baillie Gifford & Co with 5% of the shares, BlackRock with 4.92% and finally WCM Investment Management with 3.95% of the group's capital.
