Mike Hickey, an analyst at Benchmark, reiterated a “Buy” rating on Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) after "Call of Duty: Mobile," a popular video game licensed by Activision Blizzard and developed by Tencent, finally launched in China.

According to initial reports, the video game had almost 50 million preregistered users already. “Mobile” launched internationally on October 1st last year. Tencent, which holds a 5% stake in Activision Blizzard, received approval from the Chinese government in August.

“The game has soft launched in China, an estimated 49M players have pre-registered, compared to an estimated 300M downloads ex-China. We anticipate the game will launch in F4Q20. We estimated CODM China could generate $200M gross sales a quarter for Tencent and quarterly EPS of $0.04 - $0.05 for ATVI. CODM China is not in FY20 guidance. PUBG Mobile, a Tencent title, earned an estimated $200M in Sept. China accounted for the majority of revenue, with 57% made through Game for Peace, a localized version of the game,” Hickey wrote in today’s note.

Here are key changes in ATVI’s estimates for 2020 and 2021 from Hickey:

• F3Q20 revenue up 36% to $1,649M (consensus: $1,678M) from $1,214M in F3Q19
• F3Q20 EPS up 84% to $0.59 (consensus: $0.65) from $0.32 in F3Q19
• F4Q20 revenue -12% to $2,377M (consensus: $2,618M) from $2,708M in F4Q19
• F4Q20 EPS -27% to $0.90 (consensus: $1.11) from $1.23 in F4Q19

As ATVI prepares to release F3Q20 financial performance next Thursday, October 29, Hickey believes there is a chance that results come in a better-than-expected fashion. He reiterates “Buy” with a price objective of $102.00 per share.