How Market Reacts on the Metaverse Initiatives? An Event Study

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, lots of occasions need to be held in online environment. This is the reason why “Metaverse” gets lots of attention in 2021. A number of companies made announcements on Metaverse, and this situation also boomed stock market. This paper investigates the relationship between Metaverse initiatives and business value of the firm (i.e., stock prices). We examine this relationship by using event study method with Lexis-Nexis News data from 2019 to 2021. The results indicate that Metaverse initiatives significantly impact positive influence on firm’s value. In the technological perspective, technical factors affect more positive market returns, including Metaverse enablers (e.g., NFT, VR devices, digital twin) and common infrastructure (e.g., semiconductor, AI, cloud), and especially virtual environment was emphasized. Additionally, in the strategical perspective, radical innovation (e.g., pivoting, acquisition) impact more positive market return rather than incremental innovation (e.g., partnership, investment). Also, firms from non-service industries can achieve benefits from Metaverse initiatives rather than service industry in some degree.