King Digital Entertainment PLC (NYSE:KING) Shuffles Up on Analyst Optimism

On Friday the share price of King Digital Entertainment PLC (NYSE:KING) moved a healthy 5% up and ended the session at $17.85. The ticker shifted its largest share volume for the past month and registered its biggest green percentile move.

While there was no immediately identifiable material event or news trigger that could have sent KING up the charts, on Friday analysts with Deutsche Bank once again voiced their positive outlook on the company. Along with giving KING stock a price target of a whopping $27 per share, analyst Greg Poole also highlighted the company’s ‘solid performance’ and successful new titles.

KING is currently trading 21% below its IPO price. Parallels with Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA)’s underwhelming post-IPO performance are unavoidable, despite KING‘s far better mobile segment penetration. There’s also the matter with the new game offerings coming from the UK-based publisher. The Q1 report of the company highlights the 1% QoQ increase in revenues driven primarily by the success of Farm Heroes Saga that launched in mobile app stores this January. However, Candy Crush Saga is still responsible for 67% of King’s Q1 gross bookings.

The main concern of people who have a more negative outlook on KING‘s stock is that the company will have a really hard time matching the success of Candy Crush Saga. Another valid concern is whether KING will be able to really diversify at all. Earlier this month the gamemaker soft-launched its Candy Crush Soda Saga – largely a rebranding of Candy Crush Saga, in three European countries and Canada. Phonearena covered the launch and stated that only “hardcore devotees” of the original will be able to spot the differences.

Farm Heroes Saga and Diamond Digger Saga launched respectively on mobiles and Facebook in Q1 are largely spinoffs of Candy Crush, staying firmly grounded in the match-three genre. This formula obviously works for King but it remains to be seen just how many clones of the same game the company is able to monetize.

Whether the overwhelming short volume reported on Friday will help King bounce even higher in today’s session remains to be seen.