Krafton achieves sales of 390.4M GBP in 1Q24

Krafton has recorded its 1Q24 sales of 665.9B South Korean Won (390.5M GBP), Operating Profit (OP) of 310.5B KRW (182M GBP), and Net Profit (NP) of 348.6B KRW (204.4M GBP) per the Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS). Consolidated sales climbed 24.6 per cent QoQ, setting a record-high quarterly sales. The OP spiked 89.0 per cent QoQ.

Sales by business division are as follows: PC/Console 255.2B KRW (149.6M GBP), Mobile 402.3B KRW (235.9M GBP) and others 8.4B KRW (4.9M GBP). Through various live services using PUBG: Battlegrounds IP, there has been high growth in all areas, including sales and traffic. The company is focusing on securing stable traffic and enhancing monetisation models and actively pushing forward with investment and development for IP franchises.

Earnings
(1Q24)
Earnings
(4Q23)
% chg (QoQ)Earnings
(1Q23)
% chg (YoY)
Sales6,6595,34624.65,38723.6
Operating profit3,1051,64389.0%2,8309.7
Net profit3,486(132)2,67230.5
Table: Krafton’s 1Q24 (preliminary) earnings on a consolidated basis (Unit: 100M KRW)

PC/Console of PUBG: Battlegrounds saw its monthly active users (MAU) and sales reach the highest figures since the F2P (Free-to-play) transition in 2022. The mobile business also showed a steady increase in traffic due to the sixth anniversary theme mode and the HomeGround content.

Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) increased the interests of users with content tailored to local Indian festivals and co-marketing with Hindi movies, opening a UniPin web store for a third-party payment platform to improve profitability. In addition to BGMI’s stable service this year, the company plans to concentrate on diverse publishing experiences and game-centric investments to become the number one publisher in the Indian market.

Krafton also expanded investments in developers to secure future growth engines. Aligned with the Scale-up, the creative strategy announced in 2023, Krafton is acquiring promising global IPs through equity investments in developers and second-party publishing. Last year, a total of 10 investments were conducted and the pace has accelerated this year to carry out nine investments already in the first half of 2024.

The company conducted a beta test of its major 2024 title Dark and Darker Mobile. The first beta test was carried out exclusively in Korea for five days in April, which attracted over 50,000 participants. Krafton plans to improve the quality of the game through user feedback obtained during the beta test period, while also focusing on the global launch through phased marketing expansion in the second half of this year.