For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – May 5, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL
, NVIDIA Corporation
NVDA
, Microsoft Corporation
MSFT
and Facebook, Inc.
FB
.
Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:
4 Stocks to Watch Amid Skyrocketing Demand for Gaming
Cloud gaming has been rapidly gaining precedence as a popular form of gaming, thanks to the many conveniences it provides to gamers. Interestingly, cloud gaming doesn’t require users to purchase expensive personal computers or hardware for gaming. This is because the games run online or on remote servers and users can access them easily without having to go through the hassle of downloading and installing them on their devices.
Users can simply purchase gaming subscriptions or access free-to-play titles on compatible devices like desktops, smartphones, tablets, and so on. Moreover, cloud gaming allows users to play games that they might own on other gaming consoles.
Markedly, the rising penetration of the Internet across the globe has been instrumental in increasing the popularity of cloud gaming. After all, a stable Internet connection is a basic requirement for cloud gaming.
Moreover, the increasing availability of 5G services around the world is sure to provide another leg up to cloud gaming. This is because 5G offers low latency and faster speeds, which means that buffering in games will be lowered, thereby improving the overall experience.
In any case, the popularity of cloud gaming had been gradually gaining ground, but the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year helped in catapulting that demand. Being stuck at home, people needed some form of entertainment which led to video games taking center stage.
This, in turn, resulted in rising interest in cloud gaming, especially in countries like the United States. In fact, a
survey
by Piplsay last year showed that 52% of U.S. gamers took an interest in cloud gaming in 2020, amid the lockdown while 44% of U.S. gamers responded that they subscribed to a game streaming service.
Cloud Gaming Boom to Continue in 2021
While major economies around the world are gradually returning to normalcy owing to an accelerated vaccination drive, the popularity of cloud gaming looks set to continue. Markedly, gaming market analytics provider Newzoo estimated that the cloud gaming market is set to
reach $1.4 billion
in revenues in 2021 compared to $633 million in 2020. Moreover, the report stated that by 2023, the cloud gaming market is set to exceed the five-billion-dollar revenue mark, on the back of improving technology and infrastructure.
Reflective of the expected growth in cloud gaming revenues, the report further stated that by the end of 2021, cloud gaming is set to have 23.7 million paying users as the frequency of new services increases along with improvements in the existing ones.
4 Stocks to Watch
Cloud gaming seems poised to continue its good run as it allows users to play conveniently without having to necessarily purchase expensive gaming hardware. Moreover, the rising Internet penetration and availability of 5G should provide a further boost to the cloud gaming market.
Therefore, this seems like a good time to take a look at stocks that can make the most of this increasing demand for cloud gaming. Notably, we have selected four such stocks that carry a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here
.
Alphabet
‘s Google has its cloud gaming platform called Stadia, which allows users to play video games on compatible devices by streaming them directly. The company currently has a Zacks Rank #1. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings increased 23.1% over the past 60 days. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is nearly 45%.
NVIDIA
offers GeForce NOW, a cloud-based game streaming service. The company currently has a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings increased 2.2% over the past 60 days. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 35.6%.
Microsoft
has its own cloud gaming platform called Cloud Gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or xCloud. The company currently has a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings increased 5.8% over the past 60 days. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 35.4%.
Facebook
ventured into cloud gaming by allowing users to play several free-to-play gaming titles on Android devices through Facebook’s app or on a desktop through its website. The company currently has a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings increased 11.4% over the past 60 days. The company’s expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 24.6%.
More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!
It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 77 billion devices by 2025, creating a $1.3 trillion market.
Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 4 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don’t buy now, you may kick yourself in 2022.
Click here for the 4 trades >>
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.
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https://www.zacks.com/performance
for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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