AJP Factbox: NHN posts record quarterly profit as of Q3 2026
AJP Factbox: Krafton Q3 2026 operating profit falls 35.5%
SEOUL, November 10 (AJP) - South Korea's major game publishers delivered sharply divergent third-quarter results on Tuesday.
NHN and Nexon posted robust profit gains on cloud computing and overseas growth, while Krafton, the only one of the three to report lower operating profit, saw its earnings slump.
According to regulatory filings, NHN's operating profit more than doubled, up 112.6 percent from a year earlier to 58.8 billion won ($43.9 million) in the July to September period, a quarterly record.
Revenue rose 21.2 percent to 758.3 billion won. Games, the business NHN was built on, now account for less than a fifth of that total.
Technology, the segment that houses NHN's cloud business, grew fastest, with revenue jumping 53.6 percent to 171.7 billion won.
NHN Cloud's sales soared 75.5 percent on rising demand for AI graphics processing unit (GPU) services. Payments revenue rose 21.5 percent and games revenue 10.7 percent.
NHN said it aims to operate about 100 megawatts of AI data center capacity by the end of 2027. The plan includes more than 1,700 Nvidia B300 GPUs at leased sites in Seoul and Incheon, along with new centers in Jangseong and Pohang.
"We will firmly establish ourselves as a leader in businesses that will become future growth engines, such as stablecoin and AI agent payments and GPU services," said NHN Chief Executive Jung Woo-jin.
Nexon, by contrast, still earns its money from games but is selling them to a wider world. The company, which was founded in South Korea and is listed in Tokyo, said operating profit rose 11 percent to 41.8 billion yen ($264.6 million).
Revenue climbed 17 percent to 138.4 billion yen, and revenue, operating profit and net profit all beat the company's own forecasts.
The MapleStory franchise did the heavy lifting, with revenue surging 72 percent. The original PC game grew 19 percent in Korea on big summer and autumn updates.
Overseas, it roughly doubled on classic servers in China and Taiwan and an anime tie-up in North America and Europe.
Spinoffs added momentum as sales of MapleStory Worlds, a platform where players build their own games, doubled.
FC Online, a soccer game, staged a rebound after a system overhaul and a string of new content pushed average playtime to a record high. Nexon's revenue rose 17 percent in Korea and 16 percent overseas.
"Our key franchises delivered even results in the third quarter through improved gameplay and stronger content, diversifying our revenue sources," said Nexon Chief Executive Lee Jung-hun.
Krafton, maker of PUBG: Battlegrounds, saw its operating profit tumble 35.5 percent to 225 billion won, weighed down by costs including appearance at the Gamescom trade fair in Germany, the company explained.
It swung to a net loss of 68.4 billion won from a profit of 369.4 billion won a year earlier.
Revenue rose 11.6 percent to 971.4 billion won, but about a fifth came from the advertising and content business of its Japanese unit ADK Group.
Mobile revenue grew a modest 3 percent despite summer collaborations with Japanese animation IP Naruto and carmaker Ferrari.
Like NHN, Krafton is also reaching beyond games.
It unveiled a preview of its in-house large language model, Raon-1 mini, on Oct. 21, and its U.S. robotics subsidiary, Ludo Robotics, showed off a robot AI system called Ludi 0.2 on Oct. 30.
Unlike NHN's cloud unit, those ventures do not yet appear as a separate line in Krafton's revenue breakdown.
AJP Takeaways
- NHN's operating profit for July-September 2026 rose 112.6 percent from a year earlier to 58.8 billion won, led by its cloud and AI GPU business, the company said on Nov. 10, 2026.
- Nexon's operating profit for July-September 2026 rose 11 percent to 41.8 billion yen as its MapleStory franchise revenue jumped 72 percent and FC Online posted record quarterly sales.
- Krafton's operating profit for July-September 2026 fell 35.5 percent to 225 billion won and it posted a net loss of 68.4 billion won, though its nine-month revenue reached a record 3.63 trillion won.
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