Take-Two stocks soars 13% after earnings come in mixed but guidance hints Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released in 2024

• Take-Two Interactive soared 13% on Thursday after the company offered strong guidance that suggests a 2024 release for Grand Theft Auto 6.

• The company said it expects net bookings of $8 billion in its fiscal 2025 year, which suggests a big ramp up due to big game releases.

• “We plan to deliver several groundbreaking titles that we anticipate will set new standards of quality and success,” Take-Two said.

Take-Two Interactive soared 13% on Thursday after the video game publisher released strong guidance that suggests the release of its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 is imminent.

While company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings results were mixed, with revenue beating estimates but GAAP EPS worse-than-expected, it was its fiscal year 2025 guidance that got investors, and video game enthusiasts excited.

While the company expects its fiscal 2024 net booking to be as much as $5.55 billion, it expects its fiscal 2025 net bookings to surge to more than $8 billion.

“We believe that we will enter our next phase of growth in Fiscal 2025, as we plan to deliver several groundbreaking titles that we anticipate will set new standards of quality and success and enable us to deliver over $8 billion in net bookings… We expect to sustain this momentum with additional growth in operating performance in fiscal 2026,” Take-Two chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick said.

Take-Two’s fiscal 2024 year is in calendar-year 2023, while its fiscal 2025 year is in calendar-year 2024.

“For fiscal 2025, Take-Two expects to launch ‘several groundbreaking’ games that will drive net bookings to over $8b, with the at least $2.5b incremental over fiscal 2024 implying a GTA VI release in our view,” JPMorgan said in a Thursday note.

Take-Two’s Grand Theft Auto series has been wildly successful, with the 2013 release of Grand Theft Auto 5 driving lifetime unit sales of 180 million. That makes it the second best selling video game of all time, behind Minecraft.

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Investors got a taste of what Grand Theft Auto 6 could look like after a massive data leak in September 2022 led to gameplay videos being posted online.

“Take-Two delivered in the quarter on the points investors were most looking for, namely a view beyond the fiscal 2024 pipeline, and improvement at Zynga. The fiscal 2025 guidance along with anticipation for actual game announcements we think helps create a floor for the stock at current levels, and we expect upside can come from greater visibility into the cadence of out-year releases,” JPMorgan said, which rates the stock at “Overweight” with a $148 price target.

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