Krafton reported a 35.5 percent fall in third-quarter operating profit from a year earlier despite revenue growth. Costs related to attending Gamescom were reflected. Revenue and operating profit for January-September hit record highs on a third-quarter cumulative basis.

Krafton said on Nov. 10 it posted third-quarter consolidated revenue of 971.4 billion won and operating profit of 225.0 billion won.

Revenue rose 11.6 percent from a year earlier and operating profit fell 35.5 percent.

Revenue by business segment was 238.9 billion won for PC, 504.3 billion won for mobile, 8.6 billion won for console and 219.6 billion won for other.

Mobile revenue rose 3 percent from a year earlier and climbed 12 percent from the previous quarter, helped by global intellectual property collaborations such as "Naruto" and Ferrari carried out during the summer vacation peak season.

Other revenue reflected 198.4 billion won in advertising and content revenue from the ADK Group.

Third-quarter operating profit reflected costs related to attending Gamescom.

Revenue for January-September totalled 3.63 trillion won, up 50.9 percent from a year earlier, and operating profit rose 13.8 percent to 1.20 trillion won. Both were record highs on a third-quarter cumulative basis.

Cumulative operating profit was at 114 percent of full-year 2025 operating profit.

◆PUBG cumulative revenue up 11%... expanding UGC and IP collaborations

Cumulative revenue for the PUBG IP franchise in January-September rose 11 percent from a year earlier.

Monthly active users for PC and console title "PUBG: Battlegrounds" continued to show double-digit growth. In September, it introduced collaboration content with the anime "Jujutsu Kaisen".

Krafton is expanding PUBG into a gameplay platform that combines user-generated content (UGC) and external IP collaborations.

On PC, it introduced UGC in December last year and in August unveiled "PUBG Playground", where users can find and enjoy various UGC.

On mobile, it expanded global IP content in the UGC mode "World of Wonder" and also introduced monetisation features.

In the fourth quarter, it will carry out a collaboration with group IVE and release a low-capacity version, "BGMI Air", for emerging markets on Dec. 10. Pre-registrations have exceeded 14 million.

It is also preparing a large-scale content update for the 10th anniversary of PUBG's launch in 2027.

◆Expanding new IP with Subnautica 2 and DED.NET

It is also continuing efforts to secure growth engines from new IP.

"Subnautica 2" has surpassed 5 million in global cumulative sales and has a 91 percent positive rating on Steam. Remaining wishlists stand at 4.45 million.

Krafton plans to carry out a major early access 2.0 update at year-end and continue preparations for the official release.

"PUBG: DED.NET", first unveiled at Gamescom in August, is a new title under development targeting console shooter users in the West.

It combines Battlegrounds gunplay with roguelike progression elements and conducted a closed beta test (CBT) in October. Krafton plans to refine gameplay by reflecting feedback from the test and release it in 2027.

◆Unveils in-house LLM... to acquire additional 300.0 billion won in treasury shares

In artificial intelligence (AI), it unveiled its in-house large language model (LLM) "Raon-1 Mini Preview" in October.

Krafton plans to use the model for game-focused AI development such as "PUBG Ally" and later expand the development scope to include a scaled-up model, "Raon-1", and a real-time two-way voice model.

It is also continuing shareholder returns.

Krafton acquired treasury shares worth about 400.0 billion won through the third quarter and carried out a capital reduction dividend worth 99.6 billion won.

It cancelled treasury shares worth a total of 517.6 billion won, combining shares newly acquired this year and existing holdings. That corresponds to 4.4 percent of total shares outstanding.

On Nov. 3, it decided to acquire an additional 300.0 billion won worth of treasury shares and cancel all of them.

Including that, total shareholder returns this year stand at 917.2 billion won, the largest annual amount since it began shareholder returns in 2023.