Atlanta Harp's 2022 Metaverse Outlook
Added: (Mon Dec 06 2021)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Last month, Facebook rebranded to Meta, signalling the company's new focus on the metaverse, a vision for a virtual world accessible via headsets or smartphones where people can work, play, and socialise. Though the metaverse is still largely theoretical, the possibilities are limitless, with the idea being that there could be many different types of virtual worlds that could revolutionise how people interact. While Facebook is ahead of the curve in this area, other companies, such as Microsoft and Disney, have begun to invest in the metaverse.
If you're unfamiliar with the Metaverse, consider it a virtual world. Virtual worlds come in a variety of forms. Facebook aspires to be the largest. Whatever you think of Facebook's foray into the metaverse, Zuckerberg's move into this space demonstrates that he's ahead of the curve among the Big Tech juggernauts.
“We believe the Metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month when he announced the company's rebranding to Meta.
“The current, most popular ideas of the ‘metaverse’ we have today could be described simply as a place that one can visit via smart glasses or VR headsets where you find yourself in a computer-generated world – some fake forest or a beach somewhere or your office. The possibilities are endless,” says Steven Hart, Senior Wealth Manager at Atlanta Harp.
Hart believes the rest of Big Tech, as well as Japanese gamers at Sony and Nintendo, will follow Facebook into the metaverse.
People will become addicted to these virtual worlds.
Atlanta Harp considers the metaverse to be a $8 trillion addressable market with the potential to become the "next generation social media, streaming, and gaming platform."
Meta (formerly Facebook) is the firm's most obvious stock pick in this space, owing to the firm's core business's long-term growth and strong free cash flow even as it invests billions of dollars to "build the next generation version of social networking."
Atlanta Harp analysts also like the gaming company Roblox, which they believe can combine the metaverse's advertising and e-commerce opportunities with its 47 million daily active users and "strong" monetization algorithms.
The firm has identified several other stocks that it believes will benefit from the growing adoption of the metaverse concept, including those focused on augmented reality, such as Google's parent company, Alphabet, and social media platform Snap.
It also likes Unity Software, the most widely used engine in the video game industry, which, according to the company, could help with content creation for the metaverse.
Finally, Atlanta Harp is very bullish on Nvidia in this environment as it straddles a number of different industries and sectors, not least the metaverse and EVs, 2 of the hottest sectors right now.