Overseas revenue at South Korea's five largest game companies topped 70% of total sales in the first half of this year for the first time, according to an analysis.
A review by Seoul Economic Daily of the first-half results of the five top-grossing game makers — Nexon, Krafton (259960.KS), Netmarble (251270.KS), NCSOFT and Pearl Abyss (263750.KQ) — found that their average share of overseas revenue rose to 74% in the first half of this year from about 67% at the end of last year, a gain of 7 percentage points in six months.
Krafton, which extended the run of "PUBG: Battlegrounds" in markets such as China and India, and Pearl Abyss, which scored strong results with "Crimson Desert" in Western markets, posted overseas revenue shares of about 94% and 93%, respectively. Netmarble, which has steadily released new titles based on global intellectual property, has also kept its overseas revenue share at around 80% each year. On top of that, the "2N" pair — Nexon and NCSOFT — which had long relied more heavily on the domestic market, saw their overseas revenue shares climb sharply, rapidly shifting the revenue structure of major game companies from a domestic to a global focus.
