NHN said on the 10th that third-quarter consolidated revenue came to 758.3 billion won and operating profit to 58.8 billion won. Those were up 21.2% and 112.6%, respectively, from a year earlier.
NHN set a record quarterly performance in the third quarter on broad-based growth across its core businesses in games, payments, and technology. By business line, game revenue rose 10.7% on-year to 131 billion won. Web board game revenue increased 16.2% on changes in the regulatory environment and the Chuseok holiday effect. In particular, Hangame Mobile Poker posted its highest-ever monthly revenue for two straight months in September and October.
Payment institutional sector revenue rose 21.5% on-year to 397.6 billion won. NHN KCP's third-quarter transaction volume increased 30.5% to 17.3 trillion won, while overseas merchant transaction volume surged 75.4%. The share of overseas transactions also hit a record high of 25.3%.
Technology institutional sector revenue climbed 53.6% on-year to 171.7 billion won. NHN Cloud, in particular, grew revenue 75.5% on the back of its artificial intelligence (AI) graphics processing unit (GPU) business and maintained profitability. Through a government GPU build-out project, it sold out all external-use GPUs planned for the next five years at its Seoul Yangpyeong region, introduced the latest B300 GPUs at the Gwangju national AI data center, and began recognizing revenue in earnest from the Krafton GPU cluster project.
NHN Cloud plans to establish an operations framework for data centers totaling about 100 MW by the end of next year to meet rising AI infrastructure demand. It will lease 20 MW at the Pohang AI data center and build 10 MW of in-house infrastructure in the Gwangju research and development special zone, and it also plans to lease an additional 26 MW at the Jangseong Pine AI data center. It will install more than 1,700 B300 GPUs at data centers in the Seoul metropolitan area, including Seoul Gasan and Incheon Gajwa, and begin rolling out services in stages starting in January next year.
Results from INNOGRID, which became a subsidiary in July, were reflected starting in the third quarter. Building on this, NHN will step up efforts to capture the private cloud market, where security requirements are high, including in the public, defense, and financial sectors. In the payment institutional sector, it will foster stablecoin and AI agent-based payments as new growth drivers, and in the game institutional sector, it will push to streamline operations around domestic web board games and Japanese mobile games. The Korea-Japan joint project Puchi Poyong in the Fantasy World is slated for release in the first half of next year.
CEO Jung Woo-jin of NHN said, "With steady, broad-based growth across our core businesses and continued profitability, we were able to achieve another record quarterly performance in the third quarter," adding, "We plan to cement our position as a leading player in future growth businesses such as stablecoin and AI agent payments and GPU services, and build a solid foundation for sustained growth."
