Bublar Group - hit or miss?

Stocks
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I haven’t found any previous discussion about Bublar Group.

In my opinion, the company is at least interesting. Bublar specializes in combining AR/VR technology and geolocation in various applications.
Bublar Group has two acquisitions behind it: Swedish Vobling and Finnish Sayduck.

Bublar has interesting B2B clients, such as Scania, Saab, and most recently, Cargotec Sweden.

However, the biggest market interest is in the company’s mobile gaming side. During the winter, the AR role-playing game Otherworld Heroes should be released, and its beta phase was completed during the summer. Even more interesting is Hello Kitty AR Kawaii World, which is planned to launch around the Tokyo Olympics next year. Bublar has a license agreement for the game with Sanrio in several countries, including Japan.
What’s interesting about this is that Hello Kitty is the world’s largest media brand after Pokémon, with a combined value of over 50 billion dollars.

Has anyone encountered this company before? If so, what kind of thoughts, both for and against, have arisen?
I myself have been following Bublar for some time and have also bought a small slice of shares. Currently, Bublar Group is listed on NGM, but the company recently announced its intentions to move to a larger trading platform (First North).

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A small, loss-making company with 25 employees. An unusual combination of IT consulting and game development. Q2 margin -9 MSEK. Liquid assets at the end of Q2 were 7 MSEK. Since then, it has raised an additional 10 MSEK in directed issues in July, acquired Sayduck, and last week raised almost 40 MSEK more in capital through another directed issue, with a 14% dilutive effect on shares. Sayduck’s 2018 revenue was 2.8 MSEK (0.26 MEUR) and operating profit -0.21 MSEK (-0.02 MEUR). At the current rate, the cash reserves will be empty again in a year.

My initial impression did not inspire much enthusiasm. One published game for iPhone, Glowing Glowes.

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Yes, they had to take on new money, which naturally has its own implications. On the other hand, the cash flow is now stable for a while, and there are new financiers involved.
The idea behind this is surely that the Hello Kitty game will start generating revenue once it’s released. Hello Kitty is an incredibly big deal in Asia; for comparison, there’s a Hello Kitty nail polish game on Google Play with over 50 million downloads. So there’s potential, as long as they can get the game out, the cash flow can sustain marketing, Sanrio provides support, and the game resonates with players.
Risk and expected return; a lot can go wrong, but I believe there’s also potential. Of course, everyone wants to be the next Pokémon Go.

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Today is the last trading day on NGM. From Monday onwards, it will be on Nasdaq. Q3 earnings day is also on 15.11. Good growth since the news of the trading venue change came out yesterday.

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The trailer for Hello Kitty AR Kawaii World was released last week:

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I’m not familiar with the company, but I know two things:

  1. Warren Buffett would not have put money into this.
  2. The company’s name is aesthetically disturbing and feels repulsive. Somehow it always reminds me that it means Bubblar.
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The stock truly seems promising. Augmented reality is still in its infancy, and the company has extensive expertise. Not much financial success is required from future games for the company’s valuation to be moderate.

Hello Kitty is a phenomenon almost comparable to Pokemon. If the game earns even a few percent of Pokemon Go’s revenue, the company is already in the black. In addition, another game is coming, and a recent video predicts that other extended reality businesses will grow almost 10-fold worldwide by 2022.

There is a risk here, and the company is almost worthless when measured by fundamentals, but the HK license is a really big deal that is not yet getting enough attention in a small Nordic stock exchange.

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True, there’s plenty of risk, and nothing to offer yet but pretty words. It’ll be interesting to follow on social media how the news about the upcoming game spreads. At the same time, it also gives a bit of understanding of how big a deal Kitty is, especially in Asia.

The next things we’re waiting for are likely Sanrio’s social media marketing support, US licenses, and of course, the January OWH release. Or at least those are the things I’m waiting for before, hopefully, the cash flow turns positive.

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The target audience for Hello Kitty in Japan is probably broader in age range than, for example, in Europe. I’d guess it hits well with Japanese girls and women aged 4-30.

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I believe the age range is pretty much the same, but the volume in Japan is just on another level. This is supported by looking at, for example, the age of users who reacted to the game’s trailer on Instagram.

Hopefully, they’ll release some pre-registration numbers soon.

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Operations seem to be rolling along quite reasonably; today, they just announced opening an office in Singapore (https://bublar.com/press/press-releases/#/731BC9DB1CF68D68) with the promotion of AR/VR sales in mind. The company’s less interesting game in development, Otherworld Heroes, is going into its final beta test in the coming weeks and appears promising, at least from its feature list. I plan to try it as soon as possible and post some thoughts here. Additionally, the CEO recently purchased shares worth approximately 10,000 euros.

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Everyone’s probably waiting for the Hello Kitty game launch, but luckily they have other companies and development projects in the corporate group. More lively discussion on the Avanza side.

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I could also create its own pages for this, so you can get the courses, announcements, and owner listings.

EDIT: And there it is: Goodbye Kansas Group - osake - Inderes

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28.2.2020 at 10:27 AM · Nasdaq

Start of Volatility Halt Auction Period: Order book ‘BUBL’ in market ‘First North STO’ at 09:27:41.443

Start of Volatility Halt Auction Period: Order book ‘BUBL’ in market ‘First North STO’ at 09:27:41.443

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Yesterday I played the ongoing OWH beta. I must say I was positively surprised, although I’m not a heavy mobile game user. This game probably also has its chances in the market, as long as the marketing works and the cost of acquiring a player doesn’t grow too high. I have to go play more today since it’s my day off. Personally, I’d still hope for more dips for the stock so I could make one more big buy (big for me) and then wait for new licenses and HK’s public release. There’s risk, but I’m participating with play money.

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These shares also crashed and became cheap, just like almost everything else on the market. The possibility of missing the Olympics is probably a marketing-related risk, because the idea behind the game’s release was to leverage the Tokyo Olympics’ appeal and Hello Kitty’s even greater-than-normal visibility.
I don’t know how significant a risk we’re talking about. The bigger question is likely: will people play mobile games that require physical movement outdoors due to coronavirus fears?
On the other hand, people are certainly consuming more digital entertainment than before, but for example, Niantic has now temporarily changed how Pokémon Go is played so that the player doesn’t have to change location.
I would hope, for reasons other than investment, that the situation has normalized by summer.

And there is still a Hollywood movie about Hello Kitty in the works, which will surely provide its own boost in due course. As long as the game can be completed on time and the missing licenses for the USA (and very gladly for China) are put on the table.

I bought a fair stack of Bublar because it felt cheap.

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As a hobby and even as a job, I’ve been looking for emerging ICT technology trends and investing in them in one way or another. Weak signals sometimes become dominant trends, but it usually takes decades.

Gartner’s hype cycle or Deloitte’s predictions are good tools for this, but it’s even more fun to explore the weak signals and technologies that don’t yet appear in Gartner’s figures.

Bublar was one of these targets, in which I invested during the AR hype in 2018. I sold the shares in 2019, it was a very profitable trip.

What I’ve learned here is that only rarely does the best technology win in the market; instead, successful sales and marketing are decisive.

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Currently, regarding Vobling, the low sales volume might be a concern, or at least no new deals have been announced via press releases as in previous cases.
Bublar’s first noteworthy game seems to be one step closer to release, at least the game’s website has been updated, and the Beta is surely nearing its end.
https://otherworldheroes.com/
I haven’t seen any marketing for the game, but then again, I have no understanding of mobile game marketing or the channels where it happens (probably some cool social media that an old-timer like me hasn’t even heard of).
I’ve been playing the game regularly, albeit irregularly, and I think it’s good, though I don’t feel like I’m the target audience, as my gaming is mainly limited to the console and PC world.

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I haven’t been able to play that game for one reason or another. Could you tell me a little about it and describe the experience? You can also give pros and cons.

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I might not be the best person to give an accurate description of the game or evaluate its pros and cons. I am a heavy video game user myself, but I haven’t had any experience with mobile games since Angry Birds 1. The best insight into players’ opinions can certainly be found on Otherworld Heroes’ Discord, where players participating in the Beta share their comments and opinions.

But briefly, my own thoughts and observations:
The game is a location-based “Pokemon GO style” role-playing game where the player controls their own warrior, hunter, or mage (Warrior, Archer, Mage) belonging to the Oovog tribe. In the game, you move through different dimensions that differ in content.

With this character, the player then progresses on the map while walking around in the real world (i.e., the game requires the player to move from one place to another), collecting resources, treasures, equipment, new quests, and, of course, slaughtering enemies that stumble upon them.

The game gives the player quests and achievable goals, for which they then receive resources and weapons as rewards. The combat is, in my opinion, quite simply implemented, but this is certainly a good thing because the game is played outdoors while moving. In my opinion, the game has a refreshing appearance, and the concept art looks very stylish. In the game itself, playing together with friends plays a big role, and forming your own clans is one of the key elements. It’s difficult to comment on this because the game is still in the Beta phase, and there aren’t many players (there was some discussion about clan activities on Discord).

Many have said that Bublar is dependent on the success of Hello Kitty AR, but my gut feeling (this is not investment advice) is that OWH might still surprise a slightly different target group. Of course, this will only be seen when the game is out and the first download figures are available.

I can’t provide a very in-depth analysis of the matter because my playing hours are still very limited, and mobile gaming is not my thing.

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