Krafton Inc., a South Korean game publisher, said Monday its second-quarter net income surged more than 165 percent from a year earlier thanks to record quarterly sales driven by the popularity of its smash-hit title PUBG: Battlegrounds.
Its net profit reached 341.4 billion won (US$248.9 million) in the April-June period, compared with 128.5 billion won a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Operating income jumped 152.5 percent on-year to 332.1 billion won, and sales increased 82.6 percent to a quarterly high of 707 billion won.
On a half-yearly basis, the operating profit advanced 55 percent on-year to 642.6 billion won and revenue increased 48.3 percent to 1.37 trillion won, both recording the highest for the six-month period.
The earnings exceeded market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 180.1 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
The company attributed its earnings surprise mainly to per
sistent popularity of both mobile and PC versions of its blockbuster IP Battlegrounds in the domestic and global markets.
The monthly active users (MAUs) of Battlegrounds’ PC and console versions grew 40 percent on-year in the first half, and traffic of the game’s mobile version increased significantly in India thanks to localized content, the company explained.
Krafton plans to release two new titles, extraction role-playing game “Dark and Darker Mobile” and life simulation game “inZOI,” later this year.
The company also said it has made 11 investments in game studios in the first six months of this year to discover new IPs.
Source: Yonhap News Agency