Nexon enjoys record Q2 revenue despite lackluster Chinese business

Nexon on Thursday posted a record second-quarter revenue of 730.1 billion won ($615.4 million), a 20 percent jump on-year, thanks to the strong sales of both PC and mobile games, despite its lower-than-expected performance in China.

The Korean game company witnessed an operating profit of 302.5 billion won, a whopping 106 percent surge on-year in the same period, propelled by the growth of already popular PC games and the success of newly released mobile games based on those popular PC games, though it failed to bring back users in China.

MapleStory, Nexon’s 17-year-old role-playing PC game, grew 151 percent in Korea, 173 percent in North America and Europe and 217 percent in the rest of the world.

After its global launch on May 12, KartRider Rush+, Nexon’s mobile version of its 16-year-old racing game KartRider, experienced a strong start particularly in Korea and Taiwan by garnering new fans on top of the existing 380 million PC users, playing a major role in Nexon’s record revenue in the second quarter.

The Korean market accounted for 51 percent of Nexon’s total revenue in the second quarter, increasing 15 percentage points on-year.

However, Dungeon&Fighter, Nexon’s most popular game in China and its main source of income in the country, showed lackluster performance, as it failed to bring back players who have not logged in during recent months, despite its key update in March and follow-up Labor Day and 12th Anniversary updates.

As a result, Nexon’s revenue in China decreased 42.6 percent on-quarter in the second quarter.

It remains to be seen whether Nexon can get back on its feet in China, as the mobile version of Dungeon&Fighter, which launches Wednesday in China, has already recorded some 60 million preregistrations.

By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com)