[Digital Today reporter Ho-jeong Lee] Krafton posted its best-ever quarterly results, helped by steady growth in the intellectual property (IP) of 'PUBG: Battlegrounds' (Battlegrounds). At the same time, it expanded into its own artificial intelligence (AI) model and a joint venture for autonomous driving, stepping up efforts to shift its PUBG-centred profit structure to a new IP and AI-based platform.

Krafton said on Wednesday that, based on consolidated financial statements, first-quarter revenue was 1.37 trillion won and operating profit was 561.6 billion won, both the highest on a quarterly basis.

Revenue rose 56.9 percent from a year earlier and operating profit increased 22.8 percent. First-quarter operating profit alone reached 53 percent of full-year operating profit for 2025, while net profit for the period rose 38 percent to 514.1 billion won, helped by an increase in foreign-exchange-related gains.

The results are meaningful in that the quarter confirmed actual performance from a structural shift that expands the PUBG-centred revenue structure into new IP and AI businesses.

PUBG IP quarterly revenue tops 1 trillion won as it shifts from battle royale to a platform-style game

First-quarter PUBG IP franchise revenue rose 24 percent from a year earlier and exceeded 1 trillion won for the first time on a quarterly basis. Chief Financial Officer Dong-geun Bae (배동근) said time spent, the number of paying users and total users all increased across core services. He said the results did not include incentives received from partners and were entirely organic, recurring profit and loss.

PC platform revenue rose 13 percent to 363.9 billion won from a year earlier. A New Year return event in January and Spring Fest in February continued growth despite a high base a year earlier. Resales of Aston Martin vehicles for the 9th anniversary in March posted a sharp revenue increase compared with the initial sales in 2023, demonstrating the potential for renewed demand for proven content.

Mobile platform revenue rose 32 percent to 702.7 billion won. A collaboration with German hypercar brand Apollo Automobil drove demand from high-spending users, while Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) increased paying users 17 percent from a year earlier through investment to expand servers in northern regions. The official e-sports tournament 'BGIS 2026' recorded its biggest viewership. Console revenue was 13.8 billion won, up 6 percent from a year earlier, and other revenue totalled 291.0 billion won, reflecting 276.9 billion won in advertising and content revenue from the ADK Group.

Momentum for the second quarter is also being confirmed. After a patch on April 8, the average daily peak concurrent users increased to 1.0 million from 800,000, and the 'Genopoint' mode released with the patch added net users without cannibalising existing battle royale traffic. More than one third of battle royale users played Genopoint, and it recorded the highest concurrent users ever for arcade mode. That indicates the shift is translating into traffic performance as the game moves from a single battle royale structure to a platform-style game with multiple modes.

The Stella Blade collaboration content 'Contender' is recording revenue efficiency more than 20 percent higher, as of two weeks after launch, compared with a 2024 idol collaboration, and a Payday IP-based mode is scheduled for release on May 13. The premium character skin 'Phoenixtra', released in April, is recording daily revenue at the highest level ever. Bae said April traffic was quite strong and collaborations were delivering the best-ever results, and he viewed second-quarter revenue quite positively.

Inzoi, Subnautica 2, Raon build new growth engines beyond PUBG dependence

Krafton is moving to build a structure that expands its PUBG-centred revenue base into new IP and an AI-based platform.

To foster Inzoi as a long-term IP in the life simulation genre, it is focusing on two directions. The first is upgrading content based on user feedback and broadening accessibility through console porting. The second is building a modding ecosystem. It plans to lower barriers to creation with an AI scripting modding tool and introduce multiplayer, aiming to grow it into a long-term platform-style IP centred on paid creation.

Subnautica 2 is nearing its early access release. The Subnautica series has recorded cumulative sales of more than 18.5 million copies over 10 years, and Subnautica 2 has maintained the top spot on Steam's wishlist for 7 months. Chief Executive Chang-han Kim (김창한) said cooperation with the development team was progressing smoothly and early access would be released in a very short time.

In its AI strategy, it plans to fine-tune and apply 4 versions of its in-house multimodal AI model 'Raon' unveiled in April to fit the characteristics of each game. The company said Raon Speech, with 9 billion parameters, recorded the top global performance in English and Korean among models in the same class. The AI companion character 'PUBG Ally' will begin beta service in arcade mode within the year.

Krafton also filed a disclosure on Wednesday on establishing a joint venture with SoCar for autonomous driving services. Kim said the joint venture would secure data to use for physical AI research along with its autonomous driving business. That is seen as an early stage of a 'game→AI→physical' strategy to expand data accumulated in games into real-world environments.

Cost control and shareholder returns pursued together, board says stock is undervalued

First-quarter labour costs came to 276.1 billion won, reflecting 39.6 billion won in severance support under a voluntary resignation programme and 57.2 billion won in ADK labour costs. Commission fees were 288.7 billion won, up 24.5 billion won from a year earlier due to the incorporation of ADK, expansion of new projects and higher development costs related to PUBG 2.0.

On shareholder returns, it completed the purchase of 200.0 billion won of treasury shares and paid 99.6 billion won in dividends in the first quarter, and cancelled treasury shares worth 336.2 billion won, equivalent to 2.7 percent of total issued shares, on April 27. The board decided on Wednesday to buy an additional 100.0 billion won of treasury shares and cancel all of them.

Bae said the decision was based on the view that the stock was undervalued for a company that generated 560.0 billion won in first-quarter operating profit.

As of the first half of 2026, total shareholder returns stood at 399.6 billion won, up 23 percent from a year earlier, while the amount of treasury shares cancelled was 436.2 billion won, up 115 percent. The structure combines increased investment in new IP with shareholder returns, pursuing financial stability and a growth strategy at the same time.