As you have probably noticed, the IT sector is currently in full bloom and generates billions of euros of turnover every year. In this sense, the leading companies in this market represent potential profits for investors. In this article we will talk more in detail about Ubisoft and help you understand its activities by giving you some useful information to carry out a good analysis of its course.
About Ubisoft:
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 main competitors:
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.
- Activision Blizzard which is the leading publisher of online and video games consoles (World of Warcraft)
- Electronic Arts, which happens to be number two among video games publishers in the field of sports and simulation (The Sims).
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.
Ubisoft's main partners:
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.
Analysis of the price of Ubisoft’s shares:
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.
When looking at the different historical stock market charts, this title seems stable in recent years and generally has bullish peaks when it releases of a new game or software.
Important stock market data about Ubisoft:
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.
- In 2017, the total market capitalization of the group Ubisoft reached 4 903.69 MEUR.
- The number of titles issued by the company Ubisoft and currently in circulation on the market is of 112 884 255
- The price of Ubisoft shares is currently listed on the compartment A of the Euronext Paris market in France.
- Ubisoft is also part of the composition of the French national stock index CAC All shares.
- Ubisoft’s shareholding is composed of 25.15% shares of Vivendi, 13.22% shares of the Guillemot family, 9.99% shares of FMR LLC, 7.80% shares of BlackRock, 4.87% shares of FCPE Ubi, 0.36% shares in treasury and 0.27% shares of JP Morgan Clearing Corp.
Ubisoft’s economic and financial history:
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:
- In 2010, Electronic Arts sold 14.8% of its shares in Ubisoft for an amount of 94,360,000 euros. The general financing company of Quebec then took 4.5% of those shares and the investment fund Harbinger Capital Partners took 9% and became the second major shareholder of the group.
- In 2011 after losing 48% of the value of its title, Ubisoft bought back 286 000 of its shares. It then announced the creation of its own production company to adapt his video games to the cinema or the tv. That same year, the group bought Owlient and Redlynx and opened Ubisoft Abu Dhabi.
- In 2012, Ubisoft signed an agreement with the French government concerning a project of research and development for a new generation of video games. The state’s financial assistance was 3.5 million euros.
- In 2013, Ubisoft bought Future Games of London, Ivory Tower and Longtail Studios and then announced the delay in the release of two of its video games and lost 23% of the value of its title in the stock market.
- In 2015, the group Vivendi acquired a 6.6% stake in Ubisoft and bought 7.36 million of shares for a total amount of 140.3 million euros. Vivendi’s stake in the Ubisoft group reached 25% in 2016.
- Always in 2016, the Guillemot family increased its stake to 13.22% to control this new shareholder and avoid a takeover during a hostile OPA.
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.
Ubisoft’s other activities:
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.
The advantages and disadvantages of Ubisoft and of its shares:
Before starting to take a position on the course of Ubisoft’s shares with CFDs, any good investor will first learn about the prospects of this company. To help you, we invite you to discover here what are the advantages and disadvantages of this value in order to anticipate better its future movements.
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.
Finally, the company Ubisoft has a very positive balance which allows it to cope with its losses without any problem.
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.