NHN Q3 Operating Profit Jumps 112.6% on Payments, Cloud Growth; Quarterly Revenue Hits Record

NHN Cloud Targets 100 MW of AI Data Center Capacity by End of Next Year

NHN CEO Jeong Woojin

NHN posted record-high quarterly revenue and operating profit in the third quarter, driven by growth in its payments and cloud businesses.

NHN disclosed on November 10 that its consolidated revenue for the third quarter of this year rose 21.2% year over year to 758.3 billion won, while operating profit increased 112.6% to 58.8 billion won.

By business segment, revenue from payments rose 21.5% year over year to 397.6 billion won. NHN KCP's total transaction volume in the third quarter grew 30.5% year over year to 17.3 trillion won. Within that total, transaction volume from overseas merchants increased 75.4% year over year, accounting for 25.3% of total transaction volume, the highest level on record.

Revenue from the technology segment surged to 171.7 billion won, up 53.6% year over year and 7.5% quarter over quarter. NHN Cloud's third-quarter revenue rose 75.5% year over year, driven by continued growth in its artificial intelligence (AI) graphics processing unit (GPU) business.

The Seoul Yangpyeong region, which is operating as part of the government's GPU deployment project, has sold out all of its externally available GPU capacity for the next five years. In August, the company also deployed the latest B300 GPUs at the Gwangju National AI Data Center. It is expanding its business performance in both the public and private sectors, with revenue recognition for Krafton's GPU cluster project also gaining momentum. NHN Techorus, its Japanese technology subsidiary, saw revenue rise 20.8% year over year on growth in its AWS resale business.

Revenue from the game segment rose 10.7% year over year to 131 billion won. Revenue from web board games increased 16.2% year over year, driven by higher average revenue per user following changes in the regulatory environment, the effect of the Chuseok holiday in September, and the success of the offline Hangame Poker Tour (HPT). Hangame Mobile Poker achieved record monthly revenue for two consecutive months, in September and October.

Revenue from other segments fell 12.4% year over year to 78.5 billion won, as the effects of management-efficiency measures continued.

In its payments business, NHN is focusing the group's capabilities on preparing for a stablecoin business, with the goal of proactively responding to the future payments environment centered on AI and digital assets. NHN KCP is strengthening its cooperation with the global technology ecosystem, including by joining Google's standard agent payment protocol, AP2, and the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF). It is also actively building the infrastructure required for AI agent-based payments.

In its game business, NHN plans to improve overall business efficiency by focusing its capabilities on live operations for its competitive domestic web board games and Japanese mobile games, while streamlining some less profitable businesses. As the first example of Korea-Japan collaboration, Puchi Po Yong in the World of Fantasy, which received favorable reviews at the Tokyo Game Show in September, is targeting a release in the first half of next year.

NHN Cloud, which leads the technology business, plans to accelerate infrastructure expansion to meet rapidly growing GPU demand, with the goal of operating AI data centers with a total capacity of approximately 100 MW, including existing infrastructure, by the end of next year.

Regarding the additional 30 MW of capacity announced in August, NHN Cloud is pursuing a 20 MW lease at the Pohang AI Data Center, scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of next year, and plans to build 10 MW of its own infrastructure in the Gwangju Research and Development Special Zone, targeting completion by the end of next year. Separately, it plans to lease the 26 MW Jangseong Fine AI Data Center being built in Jangseong County, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special City. By securing two new hubs, one through its own construction and the other through a lease, on sites adjacent to the existing Gwangju National AI Data Center, the company plans to increase the concentration of its infrastructure.

In addition, NHN plans to secure more data center capacity in the Seoul metropolitan area through leases, including in Gasan, Seoul, and Gajwa, Incheon, install more than 1,700 B300 GPUs, and begin rolling out services from January next year.

The results of InnoGrid, which became a subsidiary of NHN Cloud in July, began to be reflected in the third-quarter results. The company is preparing to generate synergies in the private cloud market, where security requirements are high, including in the public, defense, and financial sectors.

NHN CEO Jung Woojin said, "We were able to achieve record-high quarterly results again in the third quarter, as all our key businesses continued to grow steadily and remain profitable. We plan to establish ourselves firmly as a market-leading company in businesses that will drive future growth, including stablecoins, AI agent payments, and GPU services."

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