NCSoft eyes turnaround as Aion 2 lifts growth prospects

South Korean game maker NCSOFT Corp. (KRX: 036570) reports fourth-quarter fiscal 2025 results on Tuesday, February 10, in what analysts expect to mark the low point of its earnings cycle before a gradual recovery takes hold.

The company endured a bruising 2024, capped by its first annual operating loss since listing, as ageing flagship titles lost momentum and new content failed to fill the gap. Visible Alpha consensus forecasts suggest revenue will slip to about KRW1.5 trillion in 2025, a 2.9% year-on-year decline. While still negative, the contraction would be far milder than the 11% drop recorded in 2024, and 31% decline in 2023, reflecting a stabilization in the core business and early contributions from new launches. Overall gaming sales are expected to fall 2.5% to KRW1.4 trillion.

Late last year, NCSoft launched Aion 2, a sequel to one of the company’s most successful MMORPG franchises. Released in South Korea and Taiwan in late November 2025, the title is expected to generate KRW72 billion in sales in 2025, supported by strong early engagement. Consensus estimates see that figure climbing to KRW346 billion in 2026, when Aion 2 could represent roughly 31% of mobile games revenue.

Mobile remains the group’s largest revenue segment, accounting for around 58% of total sales, but it continues to face near-term headwinds from franchise fatigue and uneven release schedules. Analysts expect mobile revenue to fall 5% in 2025 to KRW887 billion, before rebounding 28% in 2026 as Aion 2 scales and the content pipeline strengthens.

The earnings outlook is also improving. Operating profit is forecast to return to KRW28 billion in 2025, reversing the KRW109 billion loss posted in 2024. By 2026, consensus sees operating income rising sharply to KRW268 billion, signaling a meaningful margin recovery, though still below the levels achieved during the peak years of NCSoft’s legacy portfolio.

NCSoft also recently launched Lineage Classic in South Korea and Taiwan, a nostalgic revival of the early-2000s version of its flagship MMORPG first introduced in 1998, broadening the pipeline beyond its ageing core titles.

This article was published by Visible Alpha, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.