NCSoft posts record quarterly results in Q1

South Korean game company NCSoft said Tuesday it posted a record quarterly revenue of 731.1 billion won ($596.1 million) owing to the strong sales of mobile games as the COVID-19 outbreak kept people indoors, driving up demand.

According to its regulatory filing, the sales of mobile games in the first quarter surged 54 percent to 553.2 billion won from the previous one, accounting for 75.6 percent of the total revenue.

NCSoft’s flagship mobile games Lineage M and Lineage 2M brought in 212 billion won and 341.1 billion won, respectively, while PC versions of each of the two games earned 44.8 billion won and 26.4 billion won.

While the total revenue spiked 104 percent to 731.1 billion won, the operating profit skyrocketed 204 percent to 241.4 billion won. The net profit, as a result, surged 162 percent to 195.4 billion won.

The firm raised 634.6 billion won in revenue in Korea, generating 86.8 percent of revenue at home. It earned 19 billion won, 12.9 billion won and 11.8 billion won in North America and Europe, Japan and Taiwan, respectively.

“Based on the solid performance of Lineage M and Lineage 2M, we will focus on international expansion”, said NCSoft CFO Yoon Jae-soo. “Within this year, NCSoft aims to introduce Blade and Soul 2 in Korea and Lineage 2M overseas. As for the in-development Project TL, an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game, the company plans to begin testing this year.”

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