NP, Listed on KOSDAQ Market... "Building Metaverse Business Model through Aggressive Investment"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] BE (Brand Experience) · XR (Extended Reality) content company NP announced on the 20th that it will newly list on the KOSDAQ market through a merger with ‘Samsung Business Acquisition Special Purpose Company No. 2’.

Founded in 2006, NP operates the XR (Extended Reality) content business and the ‘Brand Experience (BE)’ business, which enables direct and indirect experiences of companies’ products, brands, and services both online and offline. In particular, in the first half of this year, NP opened ‘Gimpo XR Stage,’ the first permanent XR studio in Korea, and has the country’s top-level XR content infrastructure, conducting non-face-to-face concerts and more.

Additionally, NP plans to build the largest XR stage in Korea within the Uijeongbu Rhythm City complex cultural convergence district in partnership with YG Entertainment and Naver. This XR stage will not be a simple filming studio but an advanced video-based comprehensive entertainment space, to be used in various fields such as movies, dramas, music videos, concerts, and fan meetings.

NP recorded sales of 22.6 billion KRW and operating profit of 3.7 billion KRW last year, achieving an operating profit margin of 15%. Over the past three years, it has maintained an average annual sales of 25.7 billion KRW and an operating profit margin of 16%, demonstrating solid sales and profitability. This year, with the full-scale launch of the XR content business, it is expected not only to expand sales but also to improve profit margins through cost reductions using the XR stage.

At the NP Corporate Day event held online the day before, CEO Bangho Song said, “We urgently needed funds for aggressive investment, research and development (R&D), and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to provide ‘limitless experiences’ in the digital content and BE business sectors, which led us to decide to go public. With the funds secured through listing, we plan to invest in world-class hardware and R&D in the XR content field, and through M&A, acquire capable content production companies to expand XR capabilities into various fields and build NP’s unique metaverse business.”

He added, “Through close project collaboration and infrastructure network sharing among the parent company ‘Wysiwyg Studios,’ subsidiary ‘NP C&C,’ and NP’s XR-STAGE, we are carrying out and expanding various projects. Thanks to the synergy effect among Wysiwyg Studios’ content production capabilities and related companies’ IP such as ‘Com2uS,’ we were able to secure the mega national project ‘Gwanghwadae 5G Real-time Interactive Content Production’.”

CEO Sangjun Park emphasized, “Although there are many companies related to the metaverse currently, I understand that not many have established practical revenue models. NP is differentiated in that it has been realizing direct revenue starting this year by conducting non-face-to-face concerts with top-tier domestic artists through the XR stage opened this year.”

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