NHN Reports Record Quarterly Revenue of 604.4 Billion KRW in 1Q Driven by Strong Game and Payment Performance

Operating Profit 27.3 Billion KRW... Up 42.8% YoY

NHN announced on the 9th that its consolidated sales for the first quarter of this year reached 604.4 billion KRW, a 10.2% increase compared to the same period last year, marking the highest quarterly figure. Operating profit rose by 42.8% to 27.3 billion KRW during the same period, turning profitable compared to the previous quarter.

Looking at sales by sector in the first quarter, ▲the gaming sector recorded 121.9 billion KRW, up 4.2% year-on-year, driven by the growth of mobile games. Japan's NHN PlayArt's flagship mobile game, ‘LINE Disney Tsum Tsum,’ achieved its highest quarterly sales since 2018 due to a successful 10th-anniversary event. Other titles such as ‘Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni’ and ‘#Compass’ also posted double-digit growth, resulting in an 8.7% year-on-year increase in total mobile game sales.

The payment and advertising sector achieved 88.4 billion KRW, a 15.6% increase year-on-year, supported by the growth in payment volume from major domestic and overseas merchants of NHN KCP. PAYCO's transaction amount contributing to sales rose 4% year-on-year to 1.4 trillion KRW, with B2B transaction amounts centered on corporate welfare solutions growing significantly by 27% year-on-year.

The commerce sector recorded 63.7 billion KRW, up 26.0% year-on-year, influenced by the acquisition of ‘Iconic’ in the second half of last year. The technology sector saw a 5.0% decrease year-on-year but achieved 95.1 billion KRW, a 20.6% increase compared to the previous quarter, as it began to fully recognize sales generated from the ‘Gwangju National AI Data Center’ starting in the first quarter.

The content sector posted 45.0 billion KRW, a 7.5% increase year-on-year. NHN Comico continues to maintain stable traffic centered on the romance fantasy genre, while NHN Link's sales more than doubled year-on-year due to increased professional baseball season ticket sales.

In the core gaming business, ‘Uparu Odyssey,’ which successfully settled in the domestic market after its release in October last year, is preparing for a global launch in July, targeting Japan, Taiwan, and other key markets. Additionally, ‘Darkest Days’ recently completed its first CBT (Closed Beta Test) successfully for technical verification and plans to conduct a second CBT around July, aiming for an official launch within the year.

NHN Cloud was selected last month as the preferred negotiator for the third regional project in the government-led ‘Cloud Native Consulting Project,’ raising expectations for significant performance improvements in cloud business targeting public institutions this year. In the private sector, NHN Cloud plans to lead the financial market by leveraging its unique technology and know-how, including being the first in the industry to fully transition Shinhan EZ Insurance’s next-generation IT system to a public cloud-based platform.

Jung Woo-jin, CEO of NHN, stated, “The flagship Japanese gaming titles ‘LINE Disney Tsum Tsum,’ ‘Yo-kai Watch Puni Puni,’ and ‘#Compass’ are writing new history locally, disproving their status as long-running mobile games and greatly contributing to strengthening our business competitiveness.” He added, “We will continue a profitability-focused management approach by achieving solid structural improvements across all business sectors, centered on the gaming business.”