Krafton, the parent company of PUBG developer Blue Hole, recently released its 2021 earnings report. Although 5 years have passed since PUBG was released in 2017, and more and more "battle royale" games on the market have also grabbed many players, PUBG still made huge revenue this year.
In terms of revenue, 2021 was Krafton's highest-grossing year of all time, with full-year revenues of more than $1.57 billion, up 13 percent year-over-year. The company's total profit was $434.8 million. While Krafton is headquartered in South Korea, the company's earnings report shows that 94 percent of its revenue comes from overseas markets.
PUBG generated $333.6 million in revenue in 2021, including $96.1 million in the fourth quarter. The game turned free to play in January 2022, attracting a large wave of players again. The results of the transition to free will be announced at a later date.
Krafton said that in 2021, due to pubic launch of "various in-game paid products", the average consumption from each user increased by more than 300% compared to 2020.
But PUBG is far from Krafton's most profitable project.
PUBG Mobile far outperformed PUBG mobile in 2021, earning $1.18 billion in 2021 and $253.7 million in the fourth quarter alone. Krafton said the game's growth in India and the launch of PUBG: New State helped drive sales growth in 2021.
These figures in Krafton's earnings report show the size and profitability of the mobile gaming market. Back in 2020, the North American mobile game market has surpassed pc and console combined, so Krafton's earnings report is not very surprising.
Due to the large mobile game market, many traditional console and PC game manufacturers are also actively involved in the field of mobile games. EA, for example, bought mobile game studio GluMobile for $2 billion. Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard also has something to do with getting a huge audience for Candy Crush.
Going forward, Krafton plans to continue to support and evolve the PUBG series of games and expand into other new genres. Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds, the developer of Subnautica, in 2021. It is working on a new turn-based strategy game code-named Project M, which will enter Early Access this year.
In addition, Striking Distance Studios, a studio set up by Glen Schofield, co-producer of Dead Space and Call of Duty, will launch an original survival horror game set in the PUBG worldview this year.
Krafton will also launch a number of mobile games with new IPs, including Road to Valor: Empires and Defense Derby, which are expected to launch this year.
In addition, Krafton has announced a series of ambitious plans to enter the Web 3.0, NFT and meta-universe markets, so let's wait and see how its new work will perform.