Nexon Readying For IPO

[Will Smith]

Excited about Zynga’s IPO? Get Ready for Korea’s Nexon - The Washington Post
Click Link For More Info

[goten`]

I don't wanna read that. Brief it plox

[666HiddenMaster666]

It feels like an old article since Nexon has already populated in North America 0.o

[Will Smith]

not Old Published 4 days ago

[666HiddenMaster666]

not Old Published 4 days ago

I said it FEELS OLD

[Hugo Chavez]

I can't access the link for some reason, could post what it's about?

[Music]

"Excited about Zynga’s IPO? Get Ready for Korea’s Nexon

By TechCrunch.com, Published: July 8
Silicon Valley loves to dismiss Asian companies as nothing more than copycats who thrive, particularly in China, because the government protects them and punishes Western competitors. Even when the businesses in question are dramatically different in practice and scale, they are described as the “eBay of China”, “The Google of China” and “the YouTube of China,” not Alibaba, Baidu and YouKu. I’ve argued why this is mostly nonsense before.

But the starkest argument that Asia does indeed innovate may be found in the world of free-to-play games and virtual goods. This is a new market we’re in a lather about here with the impending $1 billion IPO of Zynga, but one that is much larger and more than ten years old in Asia.

And one of the industry’s pioneers– Korea-based Nexon– is also said to be readying itself for an IPO. And get this: It has higher revenues, far better margins and dramatically better user engagement statistics than Zynga, even if most average Western investors have never heard of it. No big deal, because it’s likely to file somewhere in Asia according to sources familiar with the matter, not on the NYSE or the Nasdaq. And in Korea, China and Japan, Nexon most definitely doesn’t have the problem of being unknown.

Nexon is a 17-year-old company with 1.14 billion cumulative registered users and 3000 employees. In 2009, it reported revenues of $643 million– just north of Zynga’s 2010 revenues. And we hear from people close to the company, Nexon has been growing revenues at about 30% per year for the last five years. That would put 2010 revenues around $900 million, and revenues in 2011 on pace to comfortably break $1 billion. That’s impressive growth considering Nexon’s size, age and penetration in its home market, and it means Nexon’s revenue-per-employee is almost double Zynga’s.

What’s more: Nexon’s margins are far better than Zynga’s because they don’t have to pay the 30% Facebook Credits fee on purchases. Our source says the margins are in the range of their largest competitor, Chinese juggernaut Tencent which had 50% margins in 2010. Increased tax and marketing expenses caused margins to fall to 46.3% in its March 2011 earnings report. Still, for what’s essentially a media business, those margins are pretty enviable.

And like Tencent, Nexon is starting to eye North America and Western Europe for growth. Nexon’s biggest market is in Korea, closely followed by its business in China. But its fastest growing market is North America. Nexon is growing more than 50% a year here, albeit off a pretty small base. Nine days ago it launched a private beta on its first Facebook game, a version of its popular MapleStory Adventures. (Featuring that world-weary pig above.) Some 31,000 players have “purchased” 363,000 items over that period. Purchase is in quote marks because the company isn’t actually using Facebook Credits during the beta period, so the purchases are being made from game play points. Actual monetary purchases will almost certainly be less. Still, it gives you an idea of the engagement going on. The game opens to the public July 27."

For andy

[Unicow]

What's an IPO? Anyhow, lol Korean Pride <3 Nexon Korea > Zynga was pretty much what I got from the article.

[Will Smith]

Lol Hahaha

[SmartAlley]

You wanna talk about buisiness here?

Whatever ppl care about here is for hacks

[Hugo Chavez]

You wanna talk about buisiness here?

Whatever ppl care about here is for hacks

Exactly! I didn't understand anything about that article.

[cozzak]

Are they like selling there company or something? cause an IPO means
"Does Initial Public Offering
The first sale of stock by a private company to the public. IPOs are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking the capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately owned companies looking to become publicly traded."