CJ ENM Co., an entertainment and media company under South Korea’s 15th largest conglomerate CJ Group, delivered the best-ever quarterly earnings in the second quarter on robust performance of its businesses across the board, including the box-office success of Cannes-winning “Parasite.”

The company in a regulatory filing on Thursday reported its consolidated operating profit for the second quarter ended June this year reached 96.8 billion won ($80 million), the highest-ever quarterly performance and up 5.1 percent from the previous quarter. Its revenue grew 14.1 percent on quarter 1.26 trillion won.

Against a year-ago period, operating profit jumped 22.3 percent and revenue 20.1 percent when last year’s separate earnings of CJ E&M were reflected. CJ ENM was rebranded after CJ E&M was merged with its TV home shopping affiliate CJ O Shopping last year.

On Friday, CJ ENM shares gained 1.36 percent to end at 164,100 won.

The company performed well across the board in the second quarter, including movie production and distribution that reported exceptionally stellar results.

The movie business posted 10 billion won in operating profit in the quarter, reversing from a loss recorded a year earlier. Its revenue also jumped 88.2 percent over the same period to 67.8 billion won. The brisk performance was driven by “Parasite,” a dark comic thriller that won Cannes Film Festival’s top award, Palme d’Or. The film, which CJ ENM produced and distributed, recorded over 10 million cumulative views in Korea alone.

Revenue from its cinema operations more than tripled to 41.5 billion won from the second quarter of last year. The company occupied 54 percent of movie goers in Korea in the first half.

From the media advertising business, it raked in 36.5 billion won in operating profit, up 25.1 percent from the same period last year. Revenue expanded 15.4 percent on year to 426.4 billion won. Sales of TV ad and digital ad jumped 21.4 percent and 32 percent, respectively, over the cited period.

Commerce division delivered 36.0 billion won in operating profit on revenue of 357.6 billion won. The results were up 6.2 percent and 16.3 percent, respectively, from a year ago. The volume of products sold totaled 1.02 trillion won in the second quarter, maintaining the milestone level of over 1 trillion won for the third consecutive quarter.

Music business posted 4.9 billion won in operating profit, up 16.1 percent on year. Revenue more than doubled to 153.8 billion won with record-high concert ticket sales.

A CJ ENM official said the company plans to beef up the premium, high-profit category of its businesses, including digital ad, contents, and commerce. Also, it will seek to raise profitability by expanding intellectual property business models and improving production efficiency.

By Park Chang-young and Cho Jeehyun

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