NHN reports second-quarter profit rise as cost controls pay off

NHN, which operates games, payment and cloud services, said its second-quarter operating profit rose 164.1 percent from a year earlier to 57.9 billion won ($40.9 million), as management-efficiency measures and cost controls began to lift earnings.

Revenue increased 25.3 percent to 758 billion won ($536 million), while net income climbed 158.8 percent from a year earlier to 29.1 billion won ($20.5 million). Income from continuing operations before income-tax expense rose 115.8 percent to 51.4 billion won ($36.3 million), and net income attributable to owners of the parent increased 121.1 percent to 20 billion won ($14.1 million).

"We will take the second quarter as the start of a growth phase and carry this trend into the second half," Jeong Woo-jin, NHN's chief executive, said.

Technology revenue rose 52.9 percent from a year earlier to 159.8 billion won ($113 million), as NHN Cloud revenue grew 85.3 percent after it began full-scale supply of Nvidia B200-based GPU-as-a-service offerings in the Seoul Yangpyeong region. Payment revenue increased 27.3 percent to 394 billion won ($278 million), with new large merchants at NHN KCP lifting transaction value by 34 percent and revenue by 27.5 percent. Game revenue rose 21.5 percent to 139.6 billion won ($98.6 million), supported by a 15 percent increase in webboard-game sales and 47 percent growth in mobile-game revenue in Japan.