NHN Q3 net up 38.7% on robust IT, payment business

NHN Corp., a South Korean leading information technology company, on Tuesday said its third-quarter net profit jumped 38.7 percent from a year earlier, buoyed by increased revenue from its payment and IT services, including cloud.

Net income came to 44.5 billion won ($37.6 million) on a consolidated basis in the July-September period, up from 32.1 billion won a year earlier, according to its regulatory filing.

Its operating profit gained 18.6 percent to 27.9 billion won and sales grew 14.8 percent on-year to 472.5 billion won in the cited period.

NHN attributed the stronger bottom line to growing profit from its payment and advertising business.

Sales in advertisement and payment services increased 23.4 percent on-year to 208.4 billion won, reaching an all-time quarterly high.

Payco Order, the company's digital ordering service, in particular, enjoyed more than twice the amount of orders compared to last year.

The company also said sales from its IT services, such as cloud service, grew 82 percent to 57.2 billion won.

Revenue in games, however, fell 4.9 percent on-year to 95.5 billion won. NHN said sales in online computer games dipped 15.5 percent to 40.7 billion won and sales in mobile games also lost 15.9 percent to 54.8 billion won. (Yonhap)