NHN Reports Q1 Revenue of KRW 671.4 Billion... Continued Growth in Payments and Cloud

Operating Profit Falls 5% Due to AI Infrastructure Investments
CEO Chung Woojin: "Securing Successive GPU Contracts"

NHN announced on May 12 that its consolidated revenue for the first quarter of this year reached KRW 671.4 billion, marking an 11.9% increase year-on-year. Operating profit during the same period was KRW 26.3 billion, a 5.0% decrease compared to the previous year. While all business segments—including games, payments, and technology—demonstrated balanced growth and drove up revenue, operating profit declined due to increased investments in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

NHN Headquarters Play Museum. Photo by NHN

By business segment, the game division recorded revenue of KRW 127.8 billion, up 6.8% from the same period last year. The main driver was the increase in average revenue per user across all web board game titles, following regulatory changes implemented in February. Web board game revenue in the first quarter grew 11% year-on-year. In the Japanese mobile gaming sector, "LINE Disney Tsum Tsum" saw first-quarter revenue surge 47% year-on-year, thanks to its 12th-anniversary event and collaboration with "Detective Conan". "#Compass" surpassed 20 million cumulative downloads last month and, through a collaboration with "Chainsaw Man", ranked No. 1 in iOS revenue.

The payment segment generated KRW 354.6 billion in revenue, a 22.1% increase year-on-year. Despite the seasonally slow period, NHN KCP’s first-quarter transaction volume rose 21%, while Payco’s transaction value in the corporate welfare solutions business grew 33% during the same period, continuing its strong growth trajectory.

The technology segment posted revenue of KRW 125.7 billion, up 19% compared to the previous year. NHN Cloud saw its first-quarter revenue grow by 20.2%, and Japanese tech subsidiary NHN Techorus achieved an 18.4% revenue increase, driven by strong performance in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) resale business. In other areas, NHN Link’s first-quarter revenue climbed 32.3% year-on-year, boosted by diversification of its business portfolio, including concert production.

NHN plans to deliver new achievements and improve profitability this year by focusing on its core businesses.

In the gaming business, "Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy", which was released in March, continues to benefit from the launch effect while maintaining stable traffic. For its flagship web board games, NHN will regularly host tournaments where it can engage directly with customers, such as the offline tournament "HPT" for the mobile poker game "Hangame Royal Hold’em".

In the payment business, NHN will accelerate efforts to lead the next-generation payment market centered on stablecoins by integrating NHN KCP's merchant network with user data and simple payment business expertise from NHN Payco. NHN KCP is currently preparing a proprietary mainnet optimized for payment processes, with plans to enhance its infrastructure so it can be linked to actual payment networks after proof-of-concept testing.

Leading NHN’s technology business, NHN Cloud began operating its water-cooled GPU B200 data center in the Yangpyeong region of Seoul at the end of March as part of a government-led "GPU procurement, construction, and operation support project" secured last year. In addition, it launched a high-performance GPU B300 at the Gwangju National AI Data Center and was selected as a supplier for the "2026 National AI Data Center Advancement Project", securing growth momentum for annual performance improvement. Recently, NHN also signed a GPU supply contract with AI infrastructure specialist VesselAI.

In the defense AI transformation (AX) sector, NHN Dooray plans to expand its Dooray service, launched under the name "Gukbangium" at the Ministry of National Defense in 2024, to all 300,000 members of the armed forces in the second half of the year. NHN Cloud will participate in the Defense Acquisition Program Administration’s "Joint Command and Control System Performance Improvement Development Project".

Meanwhile, starting today, NHN will proceed with a KRW 16.7 billion share buyback. In accordance with the amended Commercial Act, all repurchased shares will be cancelled.

NHN CEO Chung Woojin stated, "Our key businesses have all exhibited solid growth in the first quarter, enabling continued expansion," adding, "Although upfront infrastructure investment costs for expanding the AI GPU business weighed on profitability, we expect to see significant improvement in our technology business this year, given the ongoing large-scale GPU business contracts."

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