[Click eStock] "Mr. Blue, Visible Growth Potential in Webtoons and Games"

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] Hi Investment & Securities forecasted that Mr. Blue's growth potential will accelerate through diversification of the martial arts genre utilizing intellectual property (IP).

Mr. Blue is a specialized company providing online content and platforms such as webtoons, established in 2002. Initially, its main business was digitalizing published comics and uploading them on its own online platform, but with the development of the webtoon industry, it officially started webtoon services in 2016. Mr. Blue holds comprehensive copyrights and transmission rights of numerous famous authors, providing exclusive services, and it offers services not only on its own platform but also on other platforms such as Naver and Kakao, generating additional revenue. In 2018, it spun off its game business division to establish Blue Potion Games and operates game development and publishing businesses through its subsidiaries. As of the first quarter of this year, the sales composition by business division is 51.1% from online content services, 45.5% from games, and 3.4% from comic publishing.

Researcher Sangheon Lee of Hi Investment & Securities stated in a report on the 15th that growth potential is expected to accelerate through diversification of the martial arts genre utilizing intellectual property (IP). He said, “As of last year, Mr. Blue’s martial arts comics accounted for 46.2% of sales excluding games, leading growth,” and added, “By utilizing the IPs of the four great kings of martial arts (Hwangseong, Yaseolrok, Samadal, Haseungnam) as well as external popular martial arts IPs, they are diversifying the martial arts genre into new martial arts and fantasy martial arts. Therefore, in the second half of this year, the growth potential could accelerate as the readership expands to a younger demographic compared to before.” Above all, he added, “Since the subscription price was raised from 10,000 won to 20,000 won last November, it is expected to contribute to profitability improvement this year.”

He also anticipated that the overseas expansion of EOSRED will help make growth potential more visible. Mr. Blue launched the mobile game EOSRED, developed using the PC online MMORPG EOS IP, in August last year, recording sales of 32.6 billion won last year, contributing to overall performance improvement. The researcher said, “This year, following a large-scale update in Korea in April, pre-registrations have started from the 10th of this month in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, the first overseas expansion regions, and an official launch is expected soon,” and forecasted, “Through this, growth potential overseas could become more visible.”

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