Fourth Time's The Charm? House Of Mouse Continues Its International Effort With Disney Shanghai

Walt Disney Co DIS opened its latest park in Shanghai, China on June 16. Barclays’ Kannan Venkateshwar maintained an Underweight rating on the company, with a price target of $89. The analyst pointed out that Disney's previous international theme parks had struggled, despite the company having experience of more than 20 years in running parks outside the US.

China Market

China has been responsible for driving more than 70 percent of the growth in theme park attendance globally. Four Chinese companies were among the 10 biggest theme park operators in the world. “Therefore, the market potential obviously makes it difficult to extrapolate from Disney's past experiences,” Venkateshwar commented.

Related Link: It's Early, But Wells Fargo Is Bullish On Shanghai Disney

Disney’s Shanghai park is estimated to attract 10 million visitors in the first year, which is 33 percent higher than the currently most-attended park in China. Moreover, the park’s revenue per visitor is more than double that of other parks in China. Venkateshwar mentioned, however, that despite these assumptions, the Shanghai theme park would likely not be able to breakeven at least for the next four years.

Disney's parks in Hong Kong and royalty revenues from Tokyo could be cannibalized by the Shanghai park, since over 40 percent of visitors to the Hong Kong park were from mainland China in 2015 and 80 percent of tourists to Japan were from China, the analyst said.

Brexit is also likely to have some impact on Disney's Paris park, since 15 percent of visitors are from the UK, Venkateshwar added.

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Posted In: Analyst ColorShort IdeasEmerging MarketsReiterationMarketsAnalyst RatingsTrading IdeasBarclaysChinaKannan VenkateshwarShanghai Disney
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