After Amazing Q1, Nexon Is Down In Q2, With Moonlight Blade And MapleStory 2 Coming West

Nexon had an amazing first quarter of 2018. Its Q2 results, covering the months of April, May, and June, were released today, and they're a little less outstanding, but still positive on a year-over-year basis, even if overall revenue from Q1 to Q2 was cut almost in half.

A reminder: Q1's revenue was 90,514 million Japanese yen (mJPY), with 2/3 of that attributable to China and an amazing Dungeon Fighter promotion. For Q2, Nexon pulled in a more modest 47,794 mJPY, as revenues in China dropped down to a more typical result. That was still enough for overall revenue to be up 2% over Q2 2017.

Of special note in the financial report is Nexon's acquisition of 48.3% of the shares of NAT Games in May and the mobile developer's consolidation in late June. Most of the rest of the outlook focuses on mobile games in all regions. Moonlight Blade and MapleStory 2 highlight the upcoming non-mobile launches in North America and Europe, and Battlerite is on tap for Korea.

Here's an interesting side note: Nexon has decided not to pay dividends of surplus, a.k.a. interim dividends, to its shareholders. According to a statement, the reasoning for this is "to review and execute effective investments for proactive business development for future growth" and "retain the flexibility to continue our growth investments in our global operations." In other words, we need the money to do our business and can't pay out right now.