NCSOFT Corp., a major South Korean online and mobile game developer, said Wednesday its first-quarter net income fell 32.2 percent from a year earlier due to sluggish sales.
The company logged a net profit of 114.2 billion won (US$86.2 million) on a consolidated basis in the January-March period, compared with a net profit of 168.3 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Its operating income was 81.6 billion won in the first quarter, down 66.6 percent from a year ago, and revenue fell 39.4 percent to 478.8 billion won over the cited period.
The earnings beat market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 32.1 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Its mobile business earned 330.8 billion won in sales for the three-month period through March, plunging from the previous year's 640.7 billion won.
Quarterly revenue of PC games amounted to 91.4 billion won, also down 1.8 percent from 93.1 billion won a year ago.
Sales of "Lineage W," NCSOFT's popular online role-playing game released in 2021, tumbled 67.1 percent on-year to 122.6 billion won for the January-March period.
The steady-selling mobile version "Lineage M" (2017) posted sales of 130.1 billion, up 12.3 percent from a year earlier.
By country, sales from South Korea reached 303.7 billion won, accounting for 63 percent of the company's overall sales, followed by Asia with 99.4 billion won, and North America and Europe combined with 33.3 billion won.
NCSOFT said it is planning to carry out the beta testing for its new PC and console-based title "Throne and Liberty" from May 24 before its global release later 2023.
Shares in NCSOFT fell 1.78 percent to close at 387,000 won, underperforming the broader KOSPI's 0.54 percent loss.
Source: Yonhap News Agency