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Too early to judge Blue Archive’s China performance

Blue Archive’s release-day revenue does not necessarily represent peak level

• On Aug. 4, shares of Nexon Games fell as Blue Archive’s debut in China failed to impress, with the title failing to break into the top tier of iOS (App Store) games in terms of revenue. However, we note that the game’s release-day performance may not represent its revenue peak. Indeed, following its Feb. 2021 release in Japan, Blue Archive’s daily iOS revenue rose continuously for three days. And on Android (Google Play), Japanese revenue rose steeply during its first four days of release and set a new high on day 10. (Notably, Yostar Games is the title’s publisher in both Japan and China.)

The jury is still out

• Considering Blue Archive’s trajectory in ex-China markets, we believe it is still possible for the game to meet or even exceed market expectations (first-year average daily revenue of W1bn). Moreover, as first-day App Store downloads (280,000) were much lower than downloads on other platforms (400,000 on TapTap and 800,000 on Bilibili), iOS performance may not be a useful indicator of overall revenue performance. Significantly, Blue Archive has received higher ratings on major platforms (4.73 on App Store; 8.1 on TapTap, and 8.5 on Bilibili) than Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, the two highest-grossing subculture games in China, suggesting further upside to revenue.