South Korea’s mid-tier game publisher Krafton Inc. reported its operating profit jumped almost by six-fold from a year earlier in the third quarter as demand remains hot for its two-year-old survivor shooter game “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.”

In its earnings disclosure on Monday, Krafton announced its consolidated operating profit amounted to 167.6 billion won ($151.4 million) in the July-September period, surging 565 percent from the previous year.

Net profit also soared 297 percent on year to 110 billion won, while sales added 147 percent to total 349.9 billion won in the period.

Krafton’s cumulative operating profit from January to September added 327 percent on year to 681.3 billion won on sales of 1.24 trillion won. Nearly 80 percent of this year’s revenue is expected to have come from mobile labels, mostly the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Revenue from Asian region, excluding South Korea, totaled 1.07 trillion won, taking up 86.1 percent of the total.

Krafton recently has selected Mirae Asset Daewoo as a lead manager to underwrite its much-awaited initial public offering due in 2021.

“Krafton is planning to release new labels based on intellectual property of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and is developing various games for mobile and console platforms,” said a company official.

By Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]