NHN posts record second-quarter operating profit

Second-quarter operating profit reached a quarterly record of 57.9 billion won.

Consolidated revenue also set a quarterly record at 758 billion won.

Technology revenue increased 52.9 percent from a year earlier to 160 billion won, driven by expansion of its AI GPU business and GPU-as-a-service supply from NHN Cloud's Seoul Yangpyeong region. Payment revenue rose 27.3 percent from a year earlier to 394 billion won, helped by new large merchants joining NHN KCP, with transaction value growing 34 percent. Game revenue gained 21.5 percent from a year earlier to 140 billion won as web-board game sales rose and collaboration results involving a Japanese mobile game contributed.

"The results of management-efficiency measures and cost controls pursued over the past several years began to be reflected in earnings from the fourth quarter of last year, and this year is when the performance of core businesses is beginning in earnest," Jeong Woo-jin, NHN's chief executive, said. "The second-quarter results are the first quarter in which those achievements have been confirmed in profit, and we will use them as the starting point for a growth phase and continue this trend in the second half," he said.

NHN Cloud plans to secure at least 30 megawatts of additional AI data-center capacity by next year and expand its existing regions with B300 or newer GPUs.