[Concall] NHN to Launch 'Yongbi Bulpae M' in First Half of Year... Expanding Offline Payments (Comprehensive)

PaycoOrder Signs 10,000 Merchant Contracts Last Year... "Expanding Over 5 Times This Year"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] NHN plans to release 'Critical Ops: Reloaded' and 'Yongbi Bulpae M' in the first half of this year. The company aims to expand its offline payment business by increasing the number of 'Payco Order' affiliated stores more than fivefold compared to last year within this year.

On the 10th, during a conference call following the announcement of the 2019 fourth-quarter earnings, NHN CEO Woo-jin Jung stated, "Despite revenue improvements from Japan Compass and 'Crusader Quest,' the overall game revenue growth was limited due to the sluggish performance of existing games such as 'LINE Disney Tsum Tsum.'

He added, "We will accelerate growth in the gaming business through the launch of new betting games. We plan to release highly anticipated titles like 'Critical Ops: Reloaded' and 'Yongbi Bulpae M' in the first half of the year. In the second half, we will launch new battle royale FPS genre games and games based on popular animation intellectual properties (IP), targeting markets in Japan and other parts of Asia."

NHN plans to expand its offline payment business centered around Payco Order. CEO Jung explained, "The annual transaction volume of Payco increased by more than 30% compared to the previous year, reaching 6 trillion KRW. As of January, the monthly users reached 4.1 million, a 20% increase from the previous year."

He stated, "Payco Order provides a convenient offline payment service and signed contracts with 10,000 affiliated stores last year. This year, we plan to expand the number of affiliated stores more than fivefold." He also mentioned, "The Campus Zone, which offers Payco service experiences to university students, has expanded to cover 50% of all universities, and the meal ticket service is used by over 30,000 users across approximately 700 companies."

Furthermore, he said, "Payco will thoroughly prepare to seize good opportunities in the MyData service led by the Financial Services Commission through accumulating diverse experiences and discovering new services." Last year, Payco was the only financial sector demonstration operator selected in the MyData demonstration project led by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

Meanwhile, NHN achieved record-high performance last year with sales of 1.4891 trillion KRW and operating profit of 86.9 billion KRW. NHN announced that its 2019 results showed a 17.8% increase in sales and a 26.6% increase in operating profit compared to the previous year. In the fourth quarter of last year, sales and operating profit were 400.6 billion KRW and 17.7 billion KRW, respectively.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.