NHN Reports Q3 Operating Profit of 23.4 Billion KRW, Up 181% YoY

Stable Growth Centered on Key Businesses Such as Games and Payments
Focus on Game Business, Six New Titles to Launch Next Year

NHN continued stable growth centered on its key businesses such as gaming and payments.

NHN announced on the 9th that its consolidated third-quarter revenue increased by 9.4% year-on-year to 571.5 billion KRW, and operating profit surged by 181.5% during the same period to 23.4 billion KRW.

Looking at third-quarter revenue by segment, the gaming division recorded 110.2 billion KRW, up 2.8% from the previous quarter but down 4.9% year-on-year due to a low base effect from the easing of web board game regulations implemented since July last year. Mobile web board game revenue increased by 14% year-on-year, driven by differentiated content such as 'Jiyeokjeomryeongjeon'. The mobile game ‘Youkai Watch Puni Puni’, serviced in Japan, achieved its highest-ever quarterly revenue thanks to the ‘Youkai Watch 10th Anniversary Event’ and the ‘Hololive Collaboration’ effects.

The payment and advertising segment achieved 265.1 billion KRW, up 16.8% year-on-year, supported by continuous growth centered on NHN Payco’s core business and an increase in payment volume from large domestic and international merchants of NHN KCP. Notably, out of Payco’s total transaction amount of 2.6 trillion KRW in the third quarter, the ‘revenue-contributing transaction amount’?comprising point payments, coupons, and corporate welfare solutions?recorded 1.4 trillion KRW, up 29% year-on-year, with its proportion steadily expanding.

The commerce segment recorded 60.7 billion KRW, down 8.4% year-on-year, despite fully reflecting the performance of ‘Iconic’, an Italian luxury goods distributor acquired in July, due to ongoing external uncertainties and some service suspensions caused by business restructuring.

The technology segment achieved 95.4 billion KRW, up 33.8% year-on-year, driven by balanced growth in CSP and MSP businesses. The content segment recorded 50.0 billion KRW, down 1.9% year-on-year. NHN Link continued to set a new record for the highest quarterly revenue, driven by balanced growth in sports ticket sales and performance revenue following the previous quarter.

NHN is preparing a total of 11 new titles covering casual, mid-core, and social casino genres in its gaming business and plans to continuously strengthen growth momentum in this sector.

A total of six new titles are scheduled for release next year. The global launch of ‘Uparu Odyssey’, which recently successfully established itself in the domestic mobile game market, will commence. The mid-core genre’s first challenge, the zombie apocalypse game ‘Darkest Days’, will be introduced. The new social casino title ‘Pebble City’ is planned to be onboarded onto ‘Pebble’, NHN’s proprietary blockchain game platform utilizing the mainnet ‘SUI’, and launched in global markets excluding Korea in the first half of next year.

‘Project RE’, based on a famous IP, is being prepared for domestic release in 2025. NHN PlayArt Japan also plans to actively expand market share through new titles based on well-known local IPs, including ‘Project G’ targeted for release next year and ‘Project BA’ scheduled for 2025.

NHN Payco’s cumulative operating loss for the third quarter improved by 65% year-on-year, thanks to efforts to enhance profitability. Going forward, rather than focusing on expanding total transaction volume, the company will concentrate on structural improvement and sound management by focusing capabilities on core services where Payco’s strengths can be leveraged, such as the point payment business centered on Payco Point Card, coupon business, B2B businesses including corporate welfare solutions, and Payco Campus, aiming to achieve both scale growth and profit improvement simultaneously.

NHN Cloud has been able to actively respond to the rapidly increasing domestic AI infrastructure demand through the ‘Gwangju National AI Data Center’, which began full operation in October. In addition, it continues to lead the public sector market, centered on the government’s ‘Cloud Native Transition Project’, while steadily expanding competitiveness in the private sector, including large-scale cloud transition projects such as Shinhan Investment Corp’s ‘Meta Project’ in the financial sector.

Jung Woo-jin, CEO of NHN, said, “Despite challenging management conditions in the third quarter, NHN maintained stable growth centered on its key businesses. Going forward, NHN will strengthen its core competitiveness in the gaming business to establish a foundation for long-term growth, while focusing on sustainable growth with sound fundamentals in payment & advertising, technology, and commerce segments.”