NHN Achieves Record-High Q2 Earnings... Accelerates Expansion of AI Infrastructure Business

Sales up 25.3%, Operating Profit up 164.1%

Technology Revenue Grows 53% with AI GPU Supply

Gaming Revenue Rises as Web-board Regulations Ease

Additional AIDC Capacity Secured, New Titles Target Japanese Market

NHN achieved record-breaking quarterly results in the second quarter of this year, with all business sectors — led by technology — demonstrating balanced growth across gaming, payments, and more.

NHN. Provided by NHN

On August 11, NHN announced that its consolidated provisional sales for the second quarter reached 757.9 billion won and operating profit 57.9 billion won, a year-on-year increase of 25.3% and 164.1%, respectively. Both revenue and operating profit marked the highest figures for a quarter in the company's history.

The technology sector posted sales of 159.8 billion won, up 52.9% compared to the same period last year, as the artificial intelligence (AI) graphics processing unit (GPU) business entered a phase of rapid growth. NHN Cloud recorded a remarkable 85.3% increase in the second quarter of this year, driven by stable revenue generation at the Seoul Yangpyeong region, where NVIDIA B200-based GPU-as-a-service operations have been full-fledged. The Japanese tech subsidiary NHN Techorus also saw sales rise by 27.0% year-on-year, thanks to solid growth in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) resale business.

The payment segment’s revenue expanded 27.3% year-on-year, reaching 394.0 billion won. NHN KCP solidified its position as Korea’s leading payment gateway company, with transaction volume up 34%, due to the onboarding of new major merchants, resulting in a 27.5% growth in revenue.

Game segment revenue was 139.6 billion won, an increase of 21.5% from the previous year. In particular, Web-board games saw revenue climb by 15%, owing to regulatory changes and the offline competition "HPT" of "HANGAME Royal Hold'em," now the largest event of its kind in Korea. During the same period, revenue from Japanese mobile games increased by 47%, driven by the collaboration synergy between "#Compass" and "Chainsaw Man."

Other segments recorded an 8.8% year-on-year decrease in revenue. However, NHN Link’s performance revenue increased by 25% compared to the previous year, driven by the expansion of live events.

NHN intends to aggressively expand its AI infrastructure business in the second half of the year. NHN Cloud is currently in discussions for new long-term contracts at its Seoul Yangpyeong region, which is operational for government GPU deployment projects. In addition, to proactively respond to surging GPU demand, the company plans to secure an additional AI data center with at least 30MW capacity by next year, as well as expand its current regions with NVIDIA B300 and higher-level GPUs.

In the gaming business, NHN will focus future game development efforts on the Japanese market. The new title "Petite Dragon of Fantasy World," co-developed with NHN PlayArt in Japan, is targeted for release this winter and will be introduced at the Tokyo Game Show next month.

For the payment business, NHN aims to cultivate stablecoins as a new growth engine. Last month, NHN KCP hosted a demo day, showcasing a payment and merchant settlement system based on a mainnet jointly developed with the global blockchain company Avalanche. Having confirmed its speed and stability, NHN KCP will further enhance its infrastructure and business model by leveraging its existing merchant network and operational expertise.

NHN CEO Jung Woojin stated, "The results of management efficiency and cost control initiatives that have been underway for the past few years began to reflect in performance from the fourth quarter of last year. This year marks a period in which the achievements of our core businesses are being fully realized," adding, "We consider the profit generated in the second quarter as the starting point for our next growth phase and will maintain this momentum moving forward."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.