Nine-month operating profit hits 1.1 trillion won, up 14% on-year

PUBG IP franchise sales rise 11%; new growth drivers strengthened

Krafton to buy back, cancel additional 300 billion won in shares in Q4

Krafton's headquarters. [Krafton]
Krafton's headquarters. [Krafton]

Krafton set all-time records for both sales and operating profit through the first three quarters of this year, with cumulative sales surging 51 percent on-year to surpass 3.6 trillion won ($2.66 billion), driven by the continued growth of its flagship intellectual property "PUBG: Battlegrounds."

The company disclosed Tuesday that third-quarter consolidated sales reached 971.4 billion won and operating profit came in at 225 billion won. Sales rose 11.6 percent from a year earlier, while operating profit fell 35.5 percent over the same period.

On a nine-month cumulative basis, however, both figures were the highest in the company's history. Cumulative sales through the third quarter totaled 3.63 trillion won and cumulative operating profit reached 1.1 trillion won, up 51 percent and 14 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. The nine-month operating profit already equals 114 percent of Krafton's full-year operating profit for last year.

By segment, third-quarter sales broke down as follows: PC at 238.9 billion won, mobile at 504.3 billion won, console at 8.6 billion won and other at 219.6 billion won. The PUBG IP franchise posted nine-month cumulative sales growth of 11 percent on-year, maintaining steady momentum.

On the PC platform, monthly active users for "PUBG: Battlegrounds" on PC and console continued to grow at a double-digit rate. In September, the game collaborated with the anime IP "Jujutsu Kaisen."

The mobile platform grew 3 percent on-year and 12 percent quarter-on-quarter, buoyed by successful global IP collaborations — including tie-ins with Naruto and Ferrari — launched during the summer holiday season. The other revenue category reflected 198.4 billion won in advertising and content sales from ADK Group.

Krafton attributed the year-on-year decline in third-quarter operating profit primarily to costs associated with its participation in Gamescom.

Krafton also said it plans to expand the PUBG IP franchise into a gameplay platform supporting diverse play styles. On PC, following the introduction of user-generated content in December last year, the company launched "PUBG Playground" in August, allowing players to discover and enjoy UGC. On mobile, it has expanded global IP content within the UGC mode "World of Wonder" and introduced UGC monetization.

Krafton Chairman Chang Byung-gyu. [Krafton]
Krafton Chairman Chang Byung-gyu. [Krafton]

In the fourth quarter, Krafton plans to broaden its user base by expanding into emerging mobile markets and strengthening the PUBG brand. A collaboration with K-pop act IVE is already underway this month, and pre-registrations for "BGMI Air" — a lightweight version of the game targeting emerging markets — have surpassed 14 million ahead of its Dec. 10 launch.

Krafton is also advancing its AI capabilities. "Raon-1 mini Preview," a large language model the company developed in-house and released Oct. 21, achieved top-tier performance among domestic models of comparable size in Korean-language proficiency, response speed and inference efficiency. Krafton plans to deploy the model in applications including "PUBG Ellie" and later expand its lineup with a full-scale successor model, "Raon-1," and a full-duplex voice model.

The company is also stepping up its shareholder return policy. Under a program announced in February, Krafton acquired about 400 billion won ($295 million) worth of treasury shares and paid 99.6 billion won in reduced dividends through the third quarter. It also canceled a total of 517.6 billion won in treasury shares — combining newly acquired shares with a previously held 117.7 billion won tranche — equivalent to 4.4 percent of total shares outstanding.

Krafton said its board resolved on Nov. 3 to buy back an additional 300 billion won in treasury shares and cancel all of them. Including that buyback, total shareholder returns for 2026 will reach 917.2 billion won — the largest annual figure since the company began its shareholder return program in 2023.


chami@heraldcorp.com