PUBG's Krafton shatters earnings records in 2024

Game developer eyes W7 tril. in sales within 5 years

By Nam Hyun-woo

Krafton set new highs in its earnings last year, with its operating profit surpassing 1 trillion won ($688.23 million) for the first time, the game studio said Tuesday.

During its earnings call, the company announced that its revenue for 2024 stood at 2.71 trillion won and its operating profit hit 1.18 trillion won. The numbers represent 41.8 percent and 54 percent year-on-year increases, respectively, shattering the company’s earnings records.

The company said the sustainable growth of its flagship title, PUBG: Battlegrounds, contributed an average annual growth in sales of 20 percent over the past five years.

After its transition to a free-to-play model, PUBG’s PC and console versions reached a record-high count of peak concurrent users at 890,000 last year, maintaining strong traffic despite being in its eighth year in service.

The company noted that collaborations with various brands over the PUBG intellectual property (IP) have driven PC and console sales to nearly 1 trillion won, while the sales of the mobile version of PUBG also improved 35.7 percent year-on-year, boosted by Battlegrounds Mobile India’s record-high sales.

During the earnings call, the game studio said it plans to make significant investments in production to secure a big franchise IP, while expanding the PUBG IP franchise. Through this, the company said it aims to achieve 7 trillion won in annual revenue and double its corporate value within the next five years.

The company also stressed that it will introduce innovative gaming experiences to the global market based on its ongoing collaboration efforts with Nvidia and OpenAI.

Krafton gained attention at CES 2025 last month with its collaboration with Nvidia for co-playable characters (CPC). A CPC is a nonplayer character capable of dynamic interactions with players. Last year, Krafton released Uncover the Smoking Gun, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based chat game powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o. Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han also met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the latter’s visit to Seoul last week.

“While continuing to expand the PUBG IP, we will accelerate the discovery of a new franchise IP to further reinforce our competitive edge in the global gaming market,” Kim said. “With our AI technology defining the future of gaming experiences, we aim to evolve beyond game development as a company that ultimately advances the global entertainment ecosystem.”