Entertainment giant Paramount (NASDAQ:PARA) has a plan to take its shows on the road and get more interest in Europe. It won’t stop in Europe, either, with a complete global expansion in the works. Investors, meanwhile, aren’t sure what to think, with shares wavering between fractionally green and red all throughout the closing minutes of Tuesday’s session.
The expansion will hit several places at once; Europe will get access to the full-price streaming service, while Australia and Canada will soon have access to the ad-supported version. Paramount is building on previous successes, as it added 4.1 million subscribers just in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone.
That’s well ahead of the 2.7 million it added in the third quarter and was enough to provide some hope that other markets would show at least some interest. This comes at a good time for Paramount, too. Its linear television operations are losing ground as more customers cut the cord and head for online options.
Betting Big on Trek
One of Paramount’s key advantages in the streaming market is Star Trek. The franchise has seen an explosion of new content over the last few years, ranging from Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds to two different animated series: one the recently canceled Prodigy and the other still ongoing Lower Decks. Now, Prodigy is in Netflix’s (NASDAQ:NFLX) hands, Picard closed down with its third season, and Discovery is about to do likewise on season 5.
That’s a fairly big hole in the Star Trek Universe, as it’s called, and some are wondering where planned series like Legacy are. Paramount assures the concerned it’s all coming on a planned schedule, but without content on screens, Paramount+, and Paramount, by extension, may lose ground.
Is Paramount Global a Buy or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on PARA stock based on six Buys, six Holds, and nine Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 43.31% loss in its share price over the past year, the average PARA price target of $13.06 per share implies 17.03% upside potential.
