Date/Time: November 5, 2026 (Thu) 16:00
Attendees: CEO Byung-gyu Kim, CFO Do Ki-wook
Subject: Netmarble Q3 2026 Financial Results and Future Strategy
■ Netmarble Q3 2026 Financial Results and Status Summary
▣ Q3 2026 Financial Summary
- Q3 2026 Revenue: 634.7 billion won (-8.8% YoY, -15.3% QoQ)
└ Revenue and EBITDA decreased QoQ due to delayed launches of new titles
└ Top revenue-generating titles: SOL: enchant (8%), MARVEL Contest of Champions (8%), Lotsa Slots (8%), etc.
- Q3 2026 Operating Profit: 50.4 billion won, Net Profit: 22.2 billion won
└ Net profit decreased due to the base effect of the gain on G-Tower disposal reflected in the previous quarter
▣ Q3 2026 Expense Summary
- Q3 2026 Operating Expenses: 584.3 billion won (-3.4% YoY, 12.7% QoQ)
- Marketing Expenses: 142.7 billion won (-1.8% YoY, +22.2% QoQ)
└ Decreased QoQ due to delayed launches of new titles, among other factors
- Labor Costs: 170.0 billion won (-0.2% YoY, -6.8% QoQ)
└ Decreased QoQ due to workforce reductions, among other factors
- Commission Fees: 209.3 billion won (-6.9% YoY, -11.2% QoQ)
└ Commission fee ratio increased QoQ due to an increased revenue share from external IP games, among other factors
▣ New Title Lineup
- Plans to launch at least 13 new titles in '27
- 7 newly revealed titles
└ Wilderlings, Babel Protocol, Project D, Project X, Project C, Dark Priest, Project M
- 6 previously revealed titles
└ Shangri-La Frontier: The Seven Colossi, Solo Leveling: KARMA, WB All-Stars Idle, Guardian Tales: Dig Dot, Pearl in Blue, EvilBane
- Separately, expanding existing titles into China
└ Solo Leveling: ARISE
└ The King of Fighters ALLSTAR
■ Q&A
You mentioned plans to reveal 13 new titles in '27. Is it realistically possible to release all of them next year, and are there any changes in management or launch strategy? What caused the delays for the new titles originally scheduled for release in H2 '26?
CEO Byung-gyu Kim = I'll answer the part about delayed releases first. When launching a game, we see two core choices: either pioneering a genre or feature before others, or reinforcing competitiveness within an existing genre before release. Since the titles we prepared this year fell into combining our own unique features with existing genres rather than pioneering new ones, they required additional work to reinforce service stability.
Additionally, looking at the outcomes of our games released in '26—such as MONGIL: STAR DIVE or The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin—we clearly recognized areas that needed further improvement. Incorporating these refinements led to the push of releases originally slated for the second half of '26 into '27.
Looking at the 13-title lineup for launch in '27, around 10 are self-published and about 3 are launched through overseas subsidiaries, including our Chinese entity. Netmarble itself is capable of launching those 10 games. Of course, launching 10 titles is indeed a significant number. However, we have been working to establish AI-native work environments not only for development, but also for launching and live operations. Based on these systems, we calculate that launching 10 titles in a single year is fully achievable.
Netmarble's business model is characterized by launching multiple titles based on internal studios. We believe this structure can achieve meaningful results in an AI environment. Because we launch and operate multiple titles, we have ample opportunity to internally validate which functional processes are effective to implement. Therefore, we are preparing to internally launch over 10 games in '27.
There is no major change to our core release strategy of multi-genre and multi-platform. However, looking back at our launches in '26, we learned that pursuing multi-platform simultaneously can sometimes do more harm than good. Taking this into account, while maintaining the multi-platform strategy, we plan to adopt an approach of choice and focus rather than simultaneous rollouts, focusing initial releases on the platform where each game can achieve maximum performance.
One more thing regarding the new title lineup: because of the large number of upcoming games, we will arrange a separate venue to hold a detailed presentation session for individual game introductions.
What is your outlook for Q4 performance, and how do you view next year's cost structure and profitability prospects?
CFO Do Ki-wook = As our second-half lineup has been postponed to next year, we expect revenue changes to not fluctuate significantly compared to Q3. However, we believe profitability will clearly improve compared to Q3.
For '27, overall revenue volume will likely be determined by the performance of the previously announced lineup. Regarding cost structure and profitability, looking at the largest key items, we expect labor costs will not see significant fluctuations from current headcount. For marketing expenses, we anticipate far more effective execution compared to this year's new titles. As for commission fees, an increasing share of PC payments combined with Google's fee policies should result in meaningful cost reductions. Overall, we expect '27 to show a substantial level of profitability improvement compared to '26.
There are still many games utilizing external IPs next year. We are curious whether Google's policy changes will have a dramatic impact. Could you provide guidance on the overall proportion of commission fees?
CEO Byung-gyu Kim = Within our cost structure, three factors affect the commission fee ratio: external IPs, app store fees, and games developed by external studios. The increase in fee ratio during Q3 was driven by paying revenue shares (RS) while publishing SOL: enchant, a title by an external developer. In '27, external developer publishing accounts for a small share. Since most are internally developed titles, we do not expect the commission fee ratio to rise as it did in Q3.
While Google's store fee is theoretically 30% right now, under the new policy, we expect it to range anywhere from 20% to 30%. However, whether a game sits at 20%, 25%, or stays at 30% like before depends on two variables: how much the company can apply the Level Up Program, and at what point users install the app. Currently, we are striving to apply Google's Level Up Program to as many titles as possible.
At this point, it is difficult to specify what exact percentage the average will converge to. However, we believe the proportion of app store fees will decrease relatively in '27. Taking all of this into account, we will endeavor to maintain next year's commission fee ratio in the very low 30% range.
The '27 release schedule looks like it requires launching nearly one new title every month. Are there quarterly launch schedules set?
CEO Byung-gyu Kim = Among the announced new lineup, Shangri-La Frontier: The Seven Colossi, Solo Leveling: KARMA, and WB All-Stars Idle are targeted for launch in Q1 next year.
For the newly revealed projects, we shared project working titles rather than official game names because presenting newly revealed titles purely on paper has its limitations. To address this, we plan to arrange a separate event soon to provide detailed explanations. At that event, we will show that the newly revealed lineup is fully capable of launching in '27.
