[Click eStock] "Mr. Blue, Focus on Simultaneous Growth of Webtoon and Game Businesses"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] KB Securities analyzed on the 2nd that attention should be paid to the simultaneous growth of webtoon and game businesses in Mr. Blue. No investment opinion or target price was presented.

Mr. Blue is a webtoon production company established in 2002 and listed in 2015. It is the only domestic webtoon platform company that owns its own martial arts IP and occupies 80% of Naver Webtoon's martial arts genre. Through its subsidiary Blue Potion Games, it services the mobile martial arts game EOS Red.

In the first quarter, sales and operating profit were 17.9 billion KRW and 4 billion KRW, respectively, increasing by 7.9% and 40.1% compared to the same period last year. Due to issues such as delays in webtoon supply, sales in the content division slightly decreased compared to the same period last year. However, performance growth was seen due to the App Store launch and large-scale updates of the main game EOS Red.

In particular, KB Securities focused on the steady simultaneous growth of the webtoon and game businesses. Researcher Sang-guk Lim of KB Securities said, "There has been an increase in the number of subscribers to the webtoon platform and the average payment amount per transaction. As of the end of last year, the average payment amount per transaction surpassed 15,000 KRW, and repurchase amounts are steadily increasing." He added, "With genre diversification such as Harlequin Romance and expansion into the global webtoon market, external growth is being achieved, and continuous expansion of platform subscribers and transaction amounts is expected."

He said, "The success of the mobile game EOS Red is also expected to continue, with a simultaneous release scheduled in June in 10 Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, following Korea and Taiwan," and added, "As of the 1st, the total number of pre-registrations in the 10 Southeast Asian countries reached 1.89 million."

He emphasized, "This is more than twice as fast as the pre-registration speed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau in 2020. It is expected to be fully reflected in performance from the end of the second quarter after the official launch, and coupled with the increase in relatively high-margin game sales, an improvement in operating profit margin is also anticipated."