The global video game market is expected to surpass $138 billion USD by 2021, thanks to the rise of mobile gaming, as well as innovative technology like cloud gaming and virtual reality. One company that is cementing itself in this growing market is Vancouver-based Axion Ventures Inc. (TSXV:AXV) (OTC:AXNVF) (FRA:2A5).
Axion Ventures is a video game and IT company with majority ownership in both Shanghai-based Axion Games, an online video game development and publishing company and True Axion Interactive (TAI), a Bangkok, Thailand-based video game development company that it co-founded with True Corporation (BKK: TRUE).
Axion just announced the official launch of its WWII flying battle royale-style game, Fighter Royale: Last Ace Flying, on Steam – a cross-platform app store/digital distribution platform for purchasing and playing video games. Steam offers a massive network, with 94 million active users across 248 countries and one trillion daily impressions.
Second Game Launch in Two Weeks
The release of Fighter Royale is the second video game Axion has launched in the last two weeks, the first of which was INVICTUS: Lost Soul.
The company’s highly anticipated mobile game INVICTUS, which is the first AAA quality, eSports focused mobile game made in Thailand, launched on April 29 in Bangkok. INVICTUS was developed by True Axion Interactive (TAI), a joint venture between Axion Ventures and the True Corporation, and was nominated in the 15th International Mobile Gaming Awards in early 2019.
Axion Ventures also said that it has an additional video game in the pipeline that will be hitting the market by Q3 2019.
Gaining Access to China’s Massive Video Game Market
While the launch of Fighter Royale: Last Ace Flying and INVICTUS: Lost Soul are both very exciting releases for Axion Ventures, those aren’t the only games the company has launched in the last year.
In June 2018, Axion launched Rising Fire in China through Tencent Holding huge distribution network, WeGame. This was huge for Axion if you consider that Tencent is the world’s biggest gaming company and owns 40% of Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite.
Launching Rising Fire on WeGame will offer the game a ton of exposure considering it boasts 200 million users and is only available in China, the largest video game market in the world. In fact, China’s video game industry brought in an impressive $34.4 billion USD in 2018, accounting for nearly a third of the global market.
PI Financial Increases Axion’s Price Target
The release of Rising Fire in China, along with a private placement in March that raised $5.75 million USD, garnered some attention from analysts and investors alike.
PI Financial analyst David Kwan believes the private placement will have a positive impact on Axion’s stock and expects further updates from the company on Rising Fire’s traction in the China PC/online market will help investors better assess the company’s value.
Kwan maintained his “buy” rating for the company and increased his price target from $1.50 CAD to $1.75 CAD. While Axion’s fiscal 2018 financial results were underwhelming, the PI Financial analyst expects Axion’s fiscal 2019 revenue to be $30.2 million with an adjusted EBITDA of $8.3 million.
Axion’s share price has continued to drop this last month, going from $0.96 CAD on May 1, down to $0.76 CAD by market close on Wednesday, May 22. However, Kwan said the recent share price weakness is a good buying opportunity. Some of the key upcoming catalysts he mentioned include “multiple licensing deals for RF (and possibly Invictus) as well as updates on the ramp of Rising Fire, particularly after the major content payload set for release next month.”
It will be exciting to see how Fighter Royale: Last Ace Flying and INVICTUS: Lost Soul are received by gamers. Investors will no doubt be keeping an eye out for an update on Rising Fire and for the launch of Axion’s next game later this year.
Featured Image: Axion
