By Park Ji-won
NCsoft, a major game developer and publisher of the Lineage series, posted an operating profit of 44.5 billion won in the first three months of this year, down 19.8 percent from the 55.5 billion won it earned a year earlier.
Its first-quarter performance is weaker than market expectations.
“Revenue from Lineage game items dropped because we’ve refrained from holding promotional events in the first quarter. It negatively affected operating profits,” company spokeswoman Kyung Kwang-ho said by telephone.
Sales also dropped 3.64 percent year-on-year to 178.1 billion won from 184.8 billion won. Its net profit stood at 36.5 billion won, down 30.2 percent.
By region, sales came in at 94.4 billion won in Korea, 23.4 billion won in North America, 8.3 billion won in Japan and 5.2 billion won in Europe.
“We are preparing for large promotional events and updates in the second half, as well as focusing on increasing the contents of Lineage,” Senior Vice President Hyun Moo-jin at NCsoft said in a conference call with investors Friday.
Sales from lineage dropped to 40 billion won in the first quarter, from record sales of 74.7 billion won in the fourth quarter and 66 billion won in the first quarter a year earlier.
The official said it will be able to meet its annual sales target of 900 billion won this year despite the weak first-quarter performance.