Nexon takes Toshiba’s place in Tokyo’s Nikkei 300 index

Nexon, one of Korea’s top game developers, made it into the Nikkei 300 index on Tuesday, illustrating its growing presence in the Japanese market.

The Nikkei 300 index is akin to the Kopsi 200, which tracks the 200 largest companies listed on the Kospi. The top 300 companies listed on the Tokyo stock exchange by market capitalization are included in the Nikkei 300 index.

Nexon replaced Toshiba Corp. in the index, according to local sources. Toshiba was dropped from the Nikkei Stock Average - which includes the top 225 companies listed on the Tokyo stock exchange by market cap - on Tuesday as well, replaced by Seiko Epson, a Japanese electronics company. Toshiba is struggling to sell its flash memory unit as the preferred bidder of the race - a consortium including players from Japan, the United States and Korea - continues to fail to come to an agreement.

Nexon made a name for itself as a leading game developers with the success of Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, which was released in 1996. The game is still widely played in Korea, side-by-side its long-time industry rival Lineage by NCSOFT.

Other than Korea and Japan, the Korean game maker also has operations in China, Southeast Asia and Europe as well as the United States. Among the overseas markets, its business in Japan shows signs of rapid growth.

Nexon’s sales in the first quarter of the year were 757 billion won ($677.5 million), a 27 percent year to year jump. About 70 percent, or some 552 billion won, came from global markets outside of Korea. While the company was in the red during the first quarter of last year, it pulled into the black in this year’s first quarter, raking in 201.5 billion won in net profit.

Approximately 55 billion won - 10 percent of global sales - came from the Japanese market, according to the company, which also represented a nearly 20 percent year on year rise.

“Mobile games such as Heroes of Incredible Tales (HIT) and Hide and Fire led the company’s success in Japan,” a company spokesperson said, who added the company will continue to invest to expand market share in Japan as well as other parts of the world.

BY CHOI HYUNG-JO [choi.hyungjo@joongang.co.kr]