[Click eStock] "YG Entertainment, Explosive Growth in H1 and Undervalued Stock Price... Buying Opportunity"

Hyundai Motor Securities maintained a buy rating and a target price of 70,000 KRW for YG Entertainment (YG Enter) on the 21st.

YG Enter is expected to lead the market by capturing 27% of the concert market in the first half of this year. The K-pop concert market in the first half of this year reached 4.37 million attendees, marking an unprecedented boom, which is a 28% increase compared to the number of attendees in the first half of 2019. YG Enter plans to attract a total of 1.16 million attendees, including 880,000 for BLACKPINK and 270,000 for TREASURE, corresponding to a 27% market share. Accordingly, it is expected to form a joint leadership position with SM Entertainment, which is expected to attract 1.2 million attendees. In particular, BLACKPINK attracted 880,000 attendees in the first half alone, making it highly likely to exceed 1 million attendees annually, and is expected to become a K-pop artist to reach 1 million annual attendees following BIGBANG, TVXQ, and BTS.

Album sales in the first half are also expected to reach 2.5 million copies. YG Enter has scheduled BLACKPINK’s Jisoo’s solo album release at the end of March, TREASURE’s comeback, and BabyMonster’s debut album in the second quarter. Considering the previous BLACKPINK solo album performance and market growth rate, Jisoo’s first solo album is expected to approach 1 million copies. Additionally, TREASURE is expected to release an album around April to May, coinciding with the end of their global tour. BabyMonster, a girl group debuting seven years after BLACKPINK, is also expected to debut in the first half of the year.

Hyun-yong Kim, a researcher at Hyundai Motor Securities, said, "YG Enter’s album sales growth rate in the first half is 123%, and the increase in concert attendees is 1.14 million, which is expected to overwhelm competitors and the market. Currently, YG Enter’s expected price-to-earnings ratio (PER) for this year is 21 times, applying a 25% discount compared to the average of two companies excluding HYBE, so considering the explosive performance growth in the first half, it is judged to be a buying opportunity."