Although CD Projekt continues to work on Cyberpunk 2077, analysts expect that the company’s share price will continue to decline. Here is stock market experts’ forecast on the game’s sales and the publisher’s growth potential.
On June 29, Polish business outlet Bankier.pl published a new report on CD Projekt’s current state in the stock market.
Many domestic analysts lowered the target price of CD Projekt shares in their latest reports. For example, BDM cut the price from PLN 315 ($83) to PLN 167 ($44), with a recommendation to “reduce” instead of “buy.” All the forecasts signal that analysts are still skeptical about the company’s potential growth in the near future.
On December 10, when Cyberpunk 2077 was released, CD Projekt shares cost PLN 400 ($105.4). However, the price started decreasing due to the many technical issues and the game’s removal from the PlayStation Store. The share price saw a 51% drop since December.
According to analysts, Cyberpunk 2077 sold around 600,000 copies in the first quarter of 2021. BDM, however, doesn’t expect sales to improve in the next months, although the game was recently returned to Sony’s platform. Experts think that only large DLCs will help increase the sales and the share price, with the first expansion expected to come out in 2022.
The other thing that raises concerns among analysts is the cancellation of Cyberpunk 2077’s multiplayer version, which was supposed to be a standalone AAA game. Analysts from BDM expect the company to release it in the future and create a “universal engine” to achieve this goal.
“Moreover, considering [CD Projekt RED’s] lack of experience with such an extensive multiplayer mode, we expect that in order to minimize the risk of another unsuccessful premiere (full of many problems), the debut of a full-fledged multiplayer game will take place only after the release of the next The Witcher,” the report reads.
Analysts from Santander expect CD Projekt to generate PLN 756 million ($199.3 million) in revenues and PLN 134 million ($35.3 million) in net profit in 2021. The numbers might improve next year, with projected revenues of PLN 917 million ($241.7 million) and a net profit of PLN 318 million ($83.85 million).
However, these metrics are still far from CD Projekt’s record-breaking results, as the company generated $561 million in revenues and $303 million in net profit in 2020.