Kakao Games sees profit jump up 697 percent in Q3 after IPO

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Kakao Games sees profit jump up 697 percent in Q3 after IPO

 
Kakao Games reported a 697 percent increase in net profit to 270 billion won ($236 million) in the third quarter compared to a year ago, the company announced on Wednesday, the first earnings result since its successful listing back in September.
 
Sales rose 54 percent to 150.5 billion won on year, while operating profit jumped 178 percent to 21.2 billion won.
 
The outcomes for both sales and profits are the Kakao Games’ best-ever third-quarter performance.
 
The gaming affiliate of internet company Kakao attributed the strong profit to the great performance of Guardian Tales, a mobile role-playing game.
 
“Kakao Games’ first Guardian Tales accumulated 3 million players globally and came in third place in terms of sales in Taiwan and Hong Kong,” said Cho Kye-hyun, co-CEO of Kakao Games, during a conference call.
 
“Drawing upon its success in Southeast Asian countries, we plan to make a foray into North America,” Cho said.
 
Mobile games led the growth with 89.5 billion won in sales, up 98 percent from the previous quarter. PC-based games brought in 43.9 billion won.
 
Cho went on to say Kakao Games has high expectations for the upcoming release of Elyon, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) due to be launched on Dec. 10 in Korea.
 
The game is developed by Krafton and distributed by Kakao Games.
 
Still, the CEO said that the release will likely have greater appeal for North America and European players than those in Korea due to its nature as a PC-based MMORPG.
 
Elyon will debut in overseas markets in the latter half of next year.
 
The company said that the proceeds of its initial public listing on the Kosdaq will be used to acquire intellectual property and strengthen new businesses including “gamification,” a term referring to the use of game mechanics and game design techniques in non-gaming contexts.
 
On the first day of public trading on Sept. 10, Kakao Games hit its daily increase limit of 160 percent to close at 62,400 won.
 
The shares of the game publisher edged up 0.11 percent to close at 47,000 won on Wednesday.
 
BY PARK EUN-JEE   [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]
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