[Click eStock] "Mr. Blue Preparing New NFT Business Utilizing Webtoon IP"

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Hanyang Securities explained on the 15th that Mr. Blue is preparing an NFT business utilizing webtoon and game IP. No investment opinion or target price was presented.

Mr. Blue operates webtoon production and platform businesses. Among domestic platform companies, it is the only one that owns its own martial arts IP and is specialized in the martial arts genre, holding an 80% share in Naver Webtoon's martial arts genre. As of the end of 2020, it owns 1,867 IPs.

Yongho Kim, a researcher at Hanyang Securities, said, "One of Mr. Blue's investment attractions can be found in the webtoon business structure. The typical contract relationship between webtoon platforms and authors distributes the revenue generated from serializing works during the contract period under exclusive publishing rights," adding, "Mr. Blue also purchases the IP rights of the author in bulk through comprehensive copyright contracts."

He explained, "Through comprehensive copyright contracts, Mr. Blue holds the IP usage rights for up to 70 years after the author's death and does not share profits with the author," and added, "As IP accumulates, scalability and usability increase, so gradual profit leverage is expected to occur."

Hanyang Securities forecasted that Mr. Blue is preparing an NFT business and that the scope of expansion will be broad. Researcher Kim said, "Since the company operates both webtoon and game businesses, the scope of the NFT business is expected to be wide," and explained, "It is understood that they are developing business plans in various ways, including cooperation with related companies and establishing joint ventures for the NFT business."

He emphasized, "After recording an operating loss due to increased costs such as the launch of EOS's Southeast Asia service in the second quarter, the stock price declined and has been slow to recover despite turning profitable in the third quarter," adding, "When the NFT business is fully launched, it is expected to be a strong growth driver as the company owns its own webtoon and game IP."

Researcher Kim said, "In the rapidly changing game industry triggered by NFTs, the company is expected to create various revenue structures by utilizing its own IP," and added, "It is also anticipated that not only its own NFT business using webtoon and game IP but also IP businesses in the form of revenue sharing through cooperation with related companies such as Longtu Korea will be possible."

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