Netmarble (251270.KS) Q1 2026: Profit Surges 163% on ₩320B HYBE Exit
A one-time ₩320.8 billion HYBE stake disposal inflates headline earnings 162.9%, while core free cash flow of ₩19.0 billion reveals the gap between Netmarble's financial optics and its underlying earning power.
Source: Q1 2026 Quarterly Report — Filed with DART | Consolidated Financial Statements | Unit: ₩ billions
Netmarble delivered Q1 2026 consolidated revenue of ₩651.7 billion, a 4.5% year-on-year increase that by itself would have made for an unremarkable quarter. The decision to dispose of 880,000 shares of HYBE for ₩320.8 billion changed the calculus entirely: non-operating income vaulted from ₩8.3 billion in Q1 2025 to ₩252.6 billion, pushing net profit to ₩210.9 billion — a 162.9% surge — on a revenue base that moved only modestly. Operating profit tracked the top line in a more grounded way, rising 6.8% to ₩53.1 billion for a margin of 8.15%, confirming that the core game business is recovering incrementally but not yet generating the cash returns that justify the company's ₩8.32 trillion asset base. A simultaneous change in game product classification standards effective Q1 2026 further complicates the reading of platform mix data that might otherwise look like a dramatic structural shift toward PC and console — the nuance matters enormously for evaluating whether the reported revenue composition reflects genuine strategic progress or an accounting reclassification.
