Good day, everyone, and welcome to Nexon's 2023 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Takanori Kawai, Team Leader of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Nexon's earnings conference call. Thank you for joining us today. With me are Owen Mahoney, President and CEO of Nexon, and Shiro Uemura, CFO. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, including statements about our results of operations and financial condition, such as revenues attributable to our key titles, growth prospects, including with respect to the online games industry, our ability to compete effectively, adapt to new technologies and address new technical challenges, our use of intellectual property and other statements that are not historical facts. These statements represent our predictions, projections and expectations about future events, which we believe are reasonable or based on reasonable assumptions. However, numerous risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Information on some of these risks and uncertainties can be found in our earnings-related IR documents.
We assume no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements. Please note, net income refers to net income attributable to owners of the parent, as stated in Nexon's consolidated financial results. Furthermore, this conference call is intended to provide investors and analysts with financial and operational information about Nexon, not to solicit or recommend any sale or purchase of stock or other securities of Nexon. A recording of this conference call will be available on our investor relations website, www.ir.nexon.co.jp/en/, following this call. Unauthorized recording of this conference call is not permitted. I'd now like to turn the call over to Owen.
Thank you, Kawai-san, and good afternoon, everyone. Uemura-san and I are very excited to tell you about our Q3 results. It was another great quarter for Nexon, our sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth, and our Q4 guidance calls for a seventh such quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth. Uemura-san will provide you the details. We'll also provide you an update on our pipeline, which is proving to be not just the most exciting in our company's history, but also one of the most exciting in the entire global games industry. Our other major announcement today is that after an enormously fulfilling decade leading Nexon, I will be stepping down as CEO after the annual general shareholders meeting this coming March. While this move may come as a surprise, it has been in the works for some time.
It all starts with assembling a deep bench of highly capable executives who can lead the next generation of the company. Nexon has one of the best collections of proven and effective leaders in the global games industry, exemplified by Junghun Lee, who in March will take my position as global CEO. Over the years, Junghun and I have worked extremely closely together, and he was the key leader of so many of Nexon's successes in recent years. His operational capabilities are unparalleled in the games industry, and he also has deep experience in game development on both PC and on mobile. Under Junghun's leadership, Nexon Korea has experienced a string of successes and an unprecedented renaissance of growth that is the envy of the industry. He's built a highly capable team of the industry's best Virtual Worlds creators and operators.
As you've heard us say many times in the past, we are highly dedicated to consistent and robust growth over the long term and to strong corporate governance. Succession planning is a core part of that commitment and doesn't happen without proactively ensuring strong generational change. After 10 amazing years leading NEXON, and with the company having the strongest tailwinds in its history, it's the perfect time to pass the torch to that next generation of leadership. Junghun and I, along with others on the executive team, are already hard at work to ensure a smooth transition to his role of CEO in March. After the shareholders meeting, I expect to remain as a board member and as an advisor to the company. With that, I'll now move on to our third quarter results.
Nexon enjoyed yet another outstanding quarter, with a 23% increase in revenue and a 47% increase in operating profit year-over-year. We had strong year-over-year revenue growth from MapleStory, FC Mobile, and Blue Archive, as well as contributions from several new games. As we've said many times in the past, Nexon's growth strategy is uniquely effective in the games industry. The first pillar of that two-part growth formula is about sustained and stable growth of our existing massive virtual world franchises. We call these forever franchises, and for good reason. They grow for years or decades. MapleStory demonstrated once again, Nexon's unprecedented ability to deliver consistent and robust growth from its massive virtual worlds. Now, in its 20th year, MapleStory grew an incredible 46% year-over-year in Q3. With our Q4 guidance, MapleStory's annual revenue is now 3 x bigger than it was only five years ago.
We think the future of MapleStory Mobile is also bright. During the quarter, we launched MapleStory Mobile in China, and it has been performing better than our internal expectations. Also in China, Dungeon and Fighter performed within our expected range, with solid year-over-year increase in MAUs and paying users. In Q4, we are prioritizing player engagement over monetization, and plan to introduce additional updates and events ahead of the Lunar New Year update in Q1 of 2024. EA Sports FC Online continued its strong momentum with little to no negative impact from a rebranding from FIFA to FC that concluded in September. Both MAUs and paying users were up year-over-year, and despite the extremely high hurdle set in the 2022 World Cup year, we expect the game to complete FY 2023 with double-digit year-over-year revenue growth.
You've heard us say this many times in the past, NEXON's world-class live operations and careful management of our massive live virtual world franchises creates a highly robust and consistent base of stable growth for our shareholders. This is the first pillar of our two-part approach to growth. The second pillar of our two-part growth strategy is to develop a way to bring highly differentiated new franchises to the market that will stack on top of our massive live virtual worlds. Developing highly valuable new content is traditionally a major challenge for the games industry, but we are demonstrating an approach that works, and we are currently readying the most robust and exciting pipeline of new titles in our three-decade history, and that pipeline is getting accolades from customers.
I'll start with an update of our beta of The First Descendant, a new title from our Korea Studios, which is getting a lot of buzz with players globally. The game is a third-person, four-player, cooperative RPG shooter for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. We just completed our first open beta, and player feedback was very positive. The game climbed to the top eight on the most-played games on the Steam charts, and retention rates solidly exceeded our targets. Interest level was high around the world. Interestingly, more than 60% was from the Western regions, like U.S. and Europe. Most of the rest was from various regions around Asia. Anticipating the potential for a large global user base, our development team is focused on creating a large volume of additional content that will follow the game's release in 2024.
Next, we are just weeks away from the commercial launch of THE FINALS. This is the first title from our Embark Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, and the first in a series of games aimed directly at expanding Nexon's global footprint in Europe and North America. THE FINALS aims to redefine the category of online first-person shooters by innovating on several interlocking vectors: gameplay innovation, enabled by proprietary technology innovation, wrapped in a whole new setting and gameplay modes the industry has not seen before. As gamers ourselves, we believe that the industry as a whole, and the FPS genre in particular, has been starved of innovation over the last several years, and gamers around the world would welcome a well-crafted AAA experience with a fresh approach. The open beta test, which concluded this week, ran simultaneously on three platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
In addition to adding console, the beta featured a new map and mode, plus a lot of new content. Our primary objective for the beta—objectives for the beta, were to get gameplay feedback and to stress test the server performance at scale, frame rates and movement with large groups, given the advanced destruction physics, and our team's ability to provide rapid updates across all platforms. The feedback from users has been extraordinary. Despite doing almost no marketing for the play test, over 7.5 million people downloaded the game worldwide, widely distributed across North America, Europe, and Asia. On PC alone, we were ranked in the top four-five in usage on Steam for most of the test.
Retention rates exceeded our goals by a wide margin, and perhaps most gratifying, players told us that the game is highly unique, highly polished, and stands way out above a field of other AAA games. This was exactly our goal. More than just testing the game, we are testing a whole new way of making games. Leveraging targeted technology investments and proprietary game development tools, such as advanced server-side destruction, the objective has been to deliver a blockbuster game with a much smaller, much more nimble development team. THE FINALS team was less than 100 people at peak. This approach represents a revolution in our industry, in which game development teams for a triple-A game routinely run over 500 and sometimes well over 1,000 people.
While we haven't announced yet a commercial launch date, we plan to launch the game before the end of the year. There is a great deal more in the pipeline. While much investor attention has understandably been on THE FINALS, the team from Embark is making rapid progress on their next game, called ARC Raiders, a PvPvE extraction shooter set in a beautiful but extremely hostile world. Like THE FINALS, ARC Raiders is designed to redefine a genre in both highly original gameplay and an original technology that enables that gameplay. Again, our objective is to have a much smaller and more creative team deliver a much bigger and more innovative game. We plan to share a lot more about ARC Raiders in the next few months as we ready the first external beta test in preparation for a commercial launch in 2024.
Based on our internal play test and the alpha test in June, we are every bit as excited about ARC Raiders as we are about THE FINALS. And finally, I'd like to talk about our third product from Embark, what they are currently calling internally their creative platform. We have not spoken much about this in the past, but are now ready to share more about the significant progress the team has been making. For background, we have long felt that game development is entirely too difficult, relegated to a small class of highly trained craftspeople who spend years learning complex tools and esoteric coding techniques. Part of the complexity is that unlike in linear media, video games are, at their core, a set of if/then rules that must be hand coded into thousands of lines of precise instructions to make even the simplest games.
The inherent complexity of the process leaves little room for creative experimentation and filters out all but the most determined creators. Embark's creative playground turns this on its head completely by enabling players to create their own experiences together in real time. One simple example of the tool set in the creative playground is to use AI to power behaviors of creatures, what the industry calls NPCs. Simulated physics and AI can enable an in-game creature to walk in physically realistic ways without ever using the costly industry standard pre-rendering or motion capture technology. Our vision is for any user to develop any sort of creature they can imagine: a dog, an alien eyeball with one leg, a three-headed centipede, and it will learn to walk by itself using machine learning. And then the creatures can be given personality traits.
A user can make a world populated by angry crocodiles who are always hungry for their next meal, and then they can add AI-powered hamburger creatures who don't want to get eaten. Each AI-powered creature can observe and comment on their environment, talk to the user, and act according to their assigned personalities. By playing with these accessible tools in a fun and social sandbox, anyone can create experiences and share them directly with their friends. What I've just described is a small sliver of what the team has been developing. Our early community has made some incredible new worlds, and they've told us that the creative playground is not just powerful, it is a fun, creative space to hang out with friends and together to play, create, and experiment. What is fun to use is what tends to get adopted by a mass audience.
Like social media focused around making entertaining linear videos, game making can and should be a form of self-expression for a mass audience, and that makes it a great business opportunity. After a long gestation period to develop the core concepts and technologies, the development team plans to open the platform to external audience for testing in the first half of 2024. For some early sneak peek videos of both ARC Raiders and Embark's creative playground, please go to our investor relations website and click on the Media page. We will be talking a lot more about these products in 2024.
So as we prepare to bring THE FINALS to commercial launch, we are demonstrating not just a new game, but a radical new approach to bringing highly differentiated triple-A games to market for a fraction of the time and the cost of traditional development. This isn't just a story of one or two titles. This is a foundational change in the management and economics of game development. And to reiterate, these new titles layer on top of a layer of existing franchises that have, year after year, shown robust and consistent growth. We are not replacing old revenue from declining titles. We are adding new revenue on top of already growing existing revenue. This business model is a revolution in the games industry. So to summarize, there are four key themes for Nexon this quarter.
First, we had an outstanding Q3, and once again, showed the antifragile nature of our business model and capability of our operations teams. Our guidance calls for a seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth. The consistent growth of our massive virtual world franchises is nearly unheard of in the global video games industry.... Second, we had an outstanding open beta for THE FINALS with much higher than anticipated demand and very strong retention, placing the game among the ranks of top blockbusters in the global games industry. We plan to start commercial launch by end of the year. Third, we are making rapid progress on several other major new products that are at least as exciting, creatively and commercially as THE FINALS .
Fourth, we think our approach to game development and operations, that is, technology empowering smaller but more effective game teams to bring unique Triple-A experiences to market, is proving to be a highly powerful investment strategy that separates Nexon from the rest of the games industry. For investors, our approach translates to asymmetric upside opportunity. That is, minimal downside, thanks to the consistency of our existing Virtual Worlds and the potential for step function growth upside in both revenue and earnings. With that, I'll turn the call over to Uemura-san.
Thank you, Owen. Next, I'll review our Q3 results. For additional details, please see the Q3 2023 Investor Presentation available on our IR website. In Q3, we achieved record-breaking third quarter revenues. Group revenues were JPY 120.3 billion, up 23% year-over-year on an as-reported basis and up 17% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Our performance was driven by the growth of MapleStory and FC Mobile in Korea and Blue Archive, as well as good contributions from new titles such as Wars of Prasia, Dave the Diver, and MapleStory M in China. Overall, our top line performance exceeded our outlook. MapleStory in Korea, FC Online, and MapleStory M in China exceeded our expectations. By region, revenues from China were within the range of our outlook, while revenues from Korea, Japan, North America, and Europe exceeded our expectations.
Revenues from the rest of world came in lower than expected. Looking at the total company performance by platform, PC revenues were within the range of our outlook, while mobile revenues exceeded our outlook. Operating income was up 47% year-over-year and exceeded our outlook at JPY 46.3 billion, driven by a revenue outperformance. This marked record-breaking third quarter operating income. Net income was JPY 35.3 billion, exceeding our outlook, primarily driven by an operating income outperformance and FX gain of JPY 6 billion. Year-over-year, it was down 15% due to a JPY 26.4 billion FX gain that was recorded a year ago. Let's move on to results by region. Revenues from our Korea business were JPY 75.9 billion, representing record-breaking quarterly revenues in Korea. This performance exceeded our outlook, primarily driven by the better than expected performances of MapleStory and FC Online.
On a year-over-year basis, revenues increased by 21% on an as-reported basis and by 13% on a constant currency basis. For MapleStory, MAUs, paying users, and ARPU all increased year-over-year, driven by the successful major update in July. With the strong momentum, the event held in September was well received by users. As a result, its revenue exceeded our expectations and achieved record-breaking quarterly revenue. And the PC and mobile combined revenues of FC Online, newly rebranded in September, exceeded our outlook as it maintained its strength from last year. MAUs and paying users both increased year-over-year. All in all, PC revenues in Korea increased by 40% year-over-year, driven by the growth of MapleStory and a contribution from Wars of Prasia. As for the mobile business, FC Mobile also maintained its strong momentum following the World Cup period.
Its revenue grew year-over-year and marked record-breaking quarterly revenue. Blue Archive and MapleStory M also grew year-over-year. On a year-over-year basis, mobile revenues in Korea decreased by 13%, as growth of these titles and the contribution from Wars of Prasia were more than offset by revenue decreases in Dungeon Fighter Mobile and HIT2. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, mobile revenues slightly decreased due to a decrease in Wars of Prasia's revenue. Revenues from our China business were within the range of our outlook at JPY 24 billion. MapleStory M exceeded our expectations, while Blue Archive was below our expectations. On a year-over-year basis, revenues increased by 22% on an as-reported basis and by 20% on a constant currency basis, primarily driven by contributions from new titles, including MapleStory M and Blue Archive.
For Dungeon Fighter, revenue was within the range of our outlook and slightly decreased year-over-year. Both the summer update in July and the National Day update in September were well received by players. While package item sales increased year-over-year, individual item sales decreased as we distributed many attractive rewards at an event held to maintain a high level of users. As a result of the Z event, M AUs and paying users increased, while ARPU decreased year-over-year. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, ARPU was flat despite the seasonality because of the event, and the MAUs and paying users decreased due to a tough comparison with the previous quarter, which was boosted by the anniversary update. MapleStory M , which launched on August 17th, exceeded our expectations as it successfully acquired a large fan base, driven by the strength of the MapleStory IP.
For Blue Archive, which launched on August 3rd, revenue was below our outlook. While the number of players was in line with our expectations, item sales were lower than expected. Revenues from Japan increased by 12% year-over-year, driven by the significant growth of Blue Archive. Revenues from North America and Europe increased by 78% year-over-year, driven by growth of MapleStory and multiple mobile games, as well as a contribution from Dave the Diver. Revenues from the rest of world increased by 17% year-over-year, driven by the significant growth of Blue Archive and contributions from HIT 2 and Dave the Diver. This was partially offset by revenue decreases in MapleStory and older mobile titles. Moving on to our FY 2023 fourth quarter outlook.
In Q4, we expect growth from MapleStory as well as contributions from Wars of Prasia, MapleStory in China, and THE FINALS, which is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter. As a result, we expect Q4 revenues in the range of JPY 87.9 billion-JPY 96.2 billion, representing an 8%-19% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 2%-12% increase year-over-year on a constant currency basis. The high end of revenues represents our seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth. We expect our Q4 operating income to be in the range of JPY 11.4 billion-JPY 17.8 billion, representing a 4%-62% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 2% decrease to 53% increase year-over-year on a constant currency basis.
I'll discuss the details on this shortly. We expect net income to be in the range of JPY 8.9 billion-JPY 13.9 billion. In Korea, we expect growth from MapleStory as well as contribution from Wars of Prasia, while expecting year-over-year decreases from HIT2 and Dungeon Fighter Mobile, both of which launched in 2022. As a result, we expect revenues in Korea to be in the range of JPY 55.1 billion-JPY 58.9 billion, representing an 8%-16% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 2%-9% increase year-over-year on a constant currency basis. We expect MapleStory to grow significantly year-over-year, as it maintains its strong momentum from this Q3, when it achieved record-breaking quarterly revenue.
We anticipate a decrease in combined PC and mobile revenues from EA Sports FC Online due to the tough comparison with an exceptionally strong performance in Q4 2022, driven by the World Cup. We expect a year-over-year increase in Korea PC revenue, as we anticipate growth from MapleStory and a contribution from Wars of Prasia, partially offset by a decrease from EA Sports FC Online. Regarding the mobile business, we expect Q4 revenue to decrease year-over-year. We expect year-over-year growth in EA Sports FC Mobile and contribution from Wars of Prasia. We expect these to be more than offset by year-over-year revenue decreases in HIT2 and Dungeon Fighter Mobile, which launched in 2022. Turning to China, while we expect a contribution from MapleStory M, we anticipate a year-over-year revenue decrease from Dungeon Fighter, which delivered a strong performance in Q4 2022.
Accordingly, we expect revenues from our China business to be in the range of JPY 16.4 billion-JPY 18.6 billion, representing a 7% decrease to 5% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis and an 11% decrease to a flat year-over-year on a constant currency basis. For Dungeon Fighter, we are introducing various updates and events designed to enhance user engagement ahead of the Lunar New Year update set for Q1 2024. In October, paying users increased, while active users decreased slightly and ARPU decreased year-over-year. Given it is a challenging comparison with Q4 2022, when revenue significantly grew year-over-year, and given we will focus on enhancing user engagement over monetization, we expect this revenue to decrease year-over-year.
MapleStory M, which launched in Q3, is expected to maintain its strong momentum and contribute to Q4. In Japan, we expect revenues in the range of JPY 2.5 billion-JPY 3 billion, representing a 9% decrease to 6% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 12% decrease to 2% increase year-over-year on a constant currency basis. We anticipate growth in MapleStory, as well as contributions from Dave the Diver, which launched on Switch on October 26th, and Dynasty Warriors M, which is scheduled to launch in Q4, to be offset by decreases from terminated mobile titles.
In North America and Europe, we expect revenues to be in the range of JPY 8.3 billion-JPY 9.4 billion, representing an 81%-106% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 72%-95% increase year-over-year on a constant currency basis, driven by the growth in MapleStory M and other mobile titles, as, well as contribution from The Finals, which is scheduled to launch in Q4. We expect revenues in the rest of the world in the range of JPY 5.5 billion-JPY 6.2 billion, representing an 8%-22% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 2%-15% increase year-over-year on a constant currencies basis.
While we anticipate contribution from HIT2, which launched in Q2, as well as THE FINALS and Dynasty Warriors M, both of which are scheduled to launch in Q4, we expect these to be partially offset by revenue decreases in MapleStory and older mobile titles. In Q4 2023, we expect operating income to be in the range of JPY 11.4 billion-JPY 17.8 billion, representing a 4%-62% increase year-over-year on an as-reported basis, and a 2% decrease to 53% increase year-over-year on a constant currency basis. An increase in Q4 revenue is expected, which will contribute to an improvement in year-over-year operating income. Some of this is expected to be offset by increased costs related to business growth. First, we expect increased HR costs related to additional headcount for the development and operation of our major virtual worlds.
Second, we expect higher marketing expenses for new titles, such as THE FINALS and for MapleStory, as it sustains its positive momentum. While we expect increases in cost, operating income is expected to grow year-over-year, as we anticipate our growth business to grow in good shape and our group revenues to increase. Also, we expect our operating income margin to increase year-over-year. By adding our Q4 outlook onto Q3 accumulated results, our operating income margin in FY 2023 is expected to improve by 5 percentage points, from 29% last year to 34% this year. Overall, Nexon has been building a business model in which we can grow steadily by launching new virtual worlds onto a solid foundation of the existing franchises. In Q3, we focused on stable operation and grew revenues from the portfolio of our three major franchises.
Especially, MapleStory maintained its strong momentum following a large update in July and achieved record-breaking quarterly revenue. Driven by the stable growth of our existing portfolio and contributions from new games, such as Wars of Prasia, Dave the Diver, and MapleStory M in China, group revenues and operating income grew double digits year-over-year. In Q4, we expect continued growth of our existing portfolio through stable operations. In addition, we expect high end of our revenues and operating income, to continue to grow double digit year-over-year, driven by contributions from new games such as The Finals, the first game from Embark Studios. Last, I would like to provide an update on the shareholder return. Given our strong financial condition and business performance, as well as the current market environment, we have been aggressively purchasing our shares.
To date, we have completed JPY 70 billion of our JPY 100 billion share repurchase policy that we announced on August 9, 2022. As for the remaining JPY 30 billion worth of shares, today, our board of directors has authorized to purchase the purchase of these shares in the market during the period from tomorrow, November 10th - February 16, 2024. When this final tranche is done, we will have completed the JPY 100 billion share repurchase policy in 1.5 years, faster than the updated plan of two years, in which we authorized a one-year acceleration in the last quarter. We will continue to be committed to considering shareholders' return proactively. This concludes my comments. Back to you, Owen.
Thanks, Uemura-san. Before we go to your questions, I'd like to reiterate a key point about Nexon's place in the global games industry. We often talk to investors, customers, and employees, and we commonly hear the same themes from all quarters. Very few major new game franchises are being introduced by the industry. With the rise of development costs, it is too risky to innovate. When something innovative does come out from the industry, it usually fails. There are too many sequels, too little innovation, and too few creative surprises. And the response of many companies has been to do massive acquisitions and massive layoffs. We believe there is a better way and have spent the last several years rewriting the industry template. First, game customers don't want to be fed the same old thing. They have many good sources of entertainment competing for their time.
They became gamers because they love the art form. Second, game developers don't want to manage thousands of people or make the same game every year. They chose to work in the games industry because they want to make great game art for a mass audience. And three, investors who fund the games industry don't want a hit-driven business with highly risky $100 million-$200 million bets. They want to minimize risk while having a chance for maximum upside. They're not unreasonable. They are putting their capital and their careers on the line, and they want that money to be used wisely. Typically, these three constituent goals are treated as a zero-sum game, as a tug-of-war. Our approach is to solve each constituent's problems at the same time and is based on two innovations.
Innovation number one is our business model of launching highly unique triple-A games that stack on top of a base of massive and consistently growing live virtual worlds. The games industry is largely built on a legacy of replacing old, lost revenue with new revenue. Nexon has the unusual luxury of stacking new revenue on top of existing revenue. That approach leads to consistent growth over time and significant asymmetric upside opportunity for investors. Innovation number two is our technology stack to build and operate more innovative games at much lower cost. The traditional industry approach has evolved little in the last 20 years, namely, to hire hundreds or thousands of people to build or operate an online game. Nexon's approach is to build software tools that accelerate and scale every developer and operator by a factor of 10 or more.
That means our teams can spend more time building interesting new games and less time managing massive teams. Both of these pillars represent a revolution for the games industry. Together, they enable us to get out of the cycle of endlessly increasing development budgets and minimal innovation. It means developers can be creative again, iterating on fresh game ideas rather than on being HR specialists, managing thousands of people. In short, our approach allows us to step out of the red ocean of the legacy industry and into large, new blue oceans. The entire Nexon management team have spent years architecting this strategy. Our results this quarter indicate more than ever it's working. As we transition over the coming five months to Junghun's leadership, we're focused on not just continuity, but on accelerating our strategy. All of this adds up to significant investment tailwinds for the company.
We'd now be happy to take your questions.
Thank you, Owen. Next, we would like to open up the lines to live Q&A. Q&A session will be conducted with Japanese, English or English, Japanese consecutive interpretation. Please be noted that interpretation will come between your questions and our answers. Please hold for interpretation before you hear our answers. Our answers will also be followed by interpretation, so please hold until the interpretation finishes before moving on to the next question. For those of you who have more than one question, we will take your questions one by one. Now, we'd be happy to take your questions.
Today, we will accept questions from the conference call participants. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by the digit one on your touchtone telephone keypad. Once again, if you have a question, please press the star key followed by the digit one on your touchtone telephone keypad. When we receive your input, you will hear the pause guidance. If you do not hear the guidance, please press the star key followed by the digit one on your touchtone telephone keypad once again. We will begin taking your questions shortly. Please hold on for a moment.
The first question is from, Seyon Park from Morgan Stanley. Please.
Thank you for the opportunity. I think news of, you know, the succession comes as a surprise, and I just do want to say that it's, at least from since I've started covering the company, which I think has been six, seven years or so, it's been an incredible journey seeing the company grow its IP, grow profits, get rerated. And then I do hope that the new management continue the dedication to shareholders that Owen has shown over the years. With that, I actually have only one question which is related to THE FINALS. Maybe you can just share, you know, the monetization scheme for this game and how much of, you know, that revenue contribution is currently baked into the fourth quarter outlook.
Thank you.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]まず最初に質問する機会をいただき、ありがとうございました。まあ、今回トップ交代というニュース、大変驚きを持って伺わせていただきました。私は実際、ネクソンの担当になってから、これ七ぐらい経つかと思うんですけれども、その間に収益そして評価というのもどんどん改善されてきております。そういった今まで素晴らしい結果を出してくださっていたオーエン氏と同様に、新しい経営幹部の方々もその道のりを続けてくださればと思います。さて、ここからが質問で、今日は一つ質問があります。ザファイナルズに関してですけれども、どのような形でこのタイトルで収益を上げる計画なんしょうか。またさらに、第四四半期のフォーキャストにおいてでは、どれだけザファイナルズからの収益貢献が織り込まれているのでしょうか。
[Foreign language]はい、ご質問ありがとうございます。まず私のほうから、Q4のガイダンスにどれくらい見込んでいるかということについてお話ししたいと思います。まあ、本来、我々個別のタイトルの収益予想は個別には言いませんが、大体のヒントとなるように申し上げますと、欧米のYOYの成長の約半分ほどEmbarkのTHE FINALSから貢献されるというふうに考えております。
Thank you very much for your question. So, firstly, I will respond to your question of how much we have factored in and the number of new game into the guidance for Q4. Actually, we usually do not provide you with a breakdown of how each title contribute to our revenues, but just to give you some flavor to what we have disclosed today as our Q4 forecast. Please understand that we believe that year-on-year growth in the Western region, and this is contribution from THE FINALS of Embark. Half, rather not 50%, but half. Half of YOY growth.
Okay, so half of the YOY growth that is baked into the fourth quarter guidance reflect contribution to The FINALS, in which case, it does kind of seem to be not as significant. And then maybe can you explain a little bit on, you know, the ramp up of the monetization? Is that imply that in the initial stages, the game will have relatively lower monetization and that can potentially ramp, I guess, going into next year.
[Foreign language]あの、ではですね、前年同期で第四四半期の欧米諸国における売上収益の上昇の約半分が、この新しいタイトルからの貢献度だというふうにおっしゃったかと思うんですけれども、その重要性についてもう少し語っていただければと思います。というのも、私の理解というのは、この新しいタイトルにおける収益化というのは徐々に行うというふうに理解しておりました。したがいって、初期の段階ではさほどこの収益化することを考えておらず、ただ徐々に収益化を考えているというふうにおっしゃっていたかと思うので、もう少し説明てください。
This is Owen. I want to come back to a couple of your other comments slash questions, but, but just to answer this directly, remember that we have announced that we're going to launch it before the end of the year, but we have not announced when before the end of the year, we're going to launch it. And as you know, we're now on November 9th. So, it's a little hard to talk to you in great detail about Q4. That's point number one.
[Foreign language]では、今の質問、まあ、そしてコメントに関して直接回答させていただきますけれども、私どもはこのタイトルのローンチは今年の末までという表現を使っております。具体的に何月何日ということは述べておりません。そして、ご存知のように、今日は十一月の九日でありますので、どれだけの貢献があるのかというものは、詳しいことは現段階では言いような状況にはありません。
But second, I'd say as we, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, the data from the most recent beta has been, you know, pretty, pretty outstanding across the board. And as we said, we will be launching before the end of the year. But I'd reiterate what I've said about other titles, which is we are playing for the long term, and that's the smart way to, to launch a virtual world into the market. And our confidence after the beta for the long term of this franchise has gone way up as a result of what we saw in the beta. So I'd say our thesis, of step function growth, that we've talked about numerous times, we think is firmly in place.
[Foreign language]で、二つ目のポイントですが、先ほどプレゼンテーションで述べたように、このタイトルのベータテストの結果は大変素晴らしいものでした。そして、このタイトルは今年の末までにローンチするというところは変わりませんが、その他のタイトルに言えることも同様にここで当てはまるわけですが、我々は長期的な展望で、とりわけバーチャルワールドのことは考えております。そして、そういった枠組みの中で、このベータテストの結果を見ていきますと、本当にこのタイトルにおいては……。
[Foreign language]さらに確信、これで行けるという確信を強化することができました。そういった意味で、今後は飛躍的に伸びていくのではないかというふうに考えています。
Your other question is about monetization strategy. We have not released a great details about that yet, but you can imagine that we're probably not going to stray too far away from games of similar genres that have launched from Western studios.
[Foreign language]で、次に収益化、モネタイゼーションの戦略に関してですけれども、細かいことを語ることはできませんけれども、このタイトルと同じようなジャンルとして、欧米諸国のスタジオからリリースされたものと、そうかけ離れた形にはならないと想定しております。
Then, third, thanks for your, your comments up front. And just kind of back at you, you know, you've been with us for a long time, and we're way ahead of of a lot of folks in identifying the trends in the industry that we were focused on. So I really want to compliment you and thank you for your interest in Nexon. And I would also say, reiterate something that I sort of touched on in the prepared remarks. You know, the strategy that you are seeing us put in play and have been putting in play is something that was architected not just by me, but by the entire executive team. And a great deal of discussion and thought and debate and so on.
Of course, we work in a very dynamic industry, so our strategy could and should evolve over time. We are very much dedicated as an executive team in seeing that through, for sure.
[Foreign language]三番目ですが、冒頭温かいお言葉をいただいたことに関して感謝いたします。本当にイセオンさんは、長年にわたって、我々の会社をずっと見守ってきていただきまして、さらに、イセオンさんは、人よりも早く、いち早くこの業界が変わりつつある様子というのをちゃんと理解なさり、その上、私どもの会社に関心を寄せていただいたことをとても感謝しております。また、私のプレゼンテーションで述べたように、我々の会社が提起したこの新たな戦略というのは、どんどん具現化しつつあります。この戦略を立てたものは私だけではなく、私を含む経営幹部のチームが一丸となり、立てた戦略です。本当にマネジメントチームが深く議論をして、そして思考を重ね、そしてカンカンガクガクの議論を行った結果の賜物であるというふうに言えますし、とはいえ、この業界というのは本当にダイナミックに、変わってきております。したがって、今あるネクソンの戦略も、その変わりつつある業界の環境に合わせて、これからも進化を遂げてまいりますけれども、でもどういう、どういう経営チームになったとしても、我々は必ず最後まで、自分たちが決めた戦略というのは追求していきます。
Very reassuring. I look forward to reconnecting very soon. Thank you.
[Foreign language]ありがとうございます。とても、あの、深いお話でした。あの、今後もどうぞよろしくお願いいたします。
Thank you, Seyon.
Arigatou gozaimasu.
[Foreign language]次のご質問者はJPモルガン証券の森様です。それでは、ご質問者様、ご質問をお願いします。
Next, person to ask the question is, Miss Haruka Mori from, JP Morgan Securities, Japan. Miss Mori, please go ahead.
[Foreign language]はい。えー、JPモルガン、森です。ありがとうございます。えっと、まず、あの、三点ございます。で、一点目、私もですね、ちょっと社長交代について大変、あの、驚いております。えっと、ま、ちょっと十年以上のオーエンさんとお付き合いになりますが、あの、いろんなことを思い出しながら、あの、ちょっと、あの、ニュースを見ておりました。えっとですね、あの、少しこの点についても少しお伺いしたいと思います。まず、あの、えー、タイミング、先ほどご説明あったんですけれども、ま、エンバックのゲームはこれから続々出てくるところを、まあもう少し見届けるのかなと思ってましたが、まあ、あの、改めて、こう、なぜこのタイミングなのかというところをもしもう少しお伺いできればと思っております。あとですね、候補の方を長年準備して育ててきたということはあったんですが、ま、結果的にあのイジョン ホンさん、まあ、ネクソンコリアをずっと引っ張ってこられたので、自然な流れのようにも外から見れるんですが、まあ、イジョン ホン次期社長という方に最後バトンを渡すというふうに決めた、ま、背景について、あの、で、どんな、あの、えー、まあ、社長にトップの方になられるかという期待をオーエンさんはしているかという点について、あの、教えてください。一点目になります。
This is Mori speaking. Thank you for the opportunity. I have three questions. First of all, I'm extremely surprised to hear the news that the CEO will step down and hand it over to the new CEO. I have been seeing Owen for the past 10 years, and I was reflecting on various memories that I have on Owen-san when I heard the news. And I would like to hear more about this handover of the CEO. Firstly, regarding the timing. I thought that since your company is planning to launch various and new titles through Embark going forward, why didn't you stay longer to see that happen? Why now? Is the first question.
And, secondly, I believe you have been preparing for the successor for a long time, and I think it's quite natural to appoint Mr. Lee as the successor, as he has been taking the lead of Nexon Korea for a long time. But I would like to ask you, what was the background in choosing Mr. Junghun Lee as your successor? And what is your expectation towards Mr. Junghun Lee when he becomes the CEO?
Well, thanks for your, your comments, Mori-san, and, I also, have really enjoyed working with you since before the IPO. It's been quite a long time. And thanks for all your, your deep study and interest in Nexon for all those years. You've been great to work with. In terms of, succession planning, you know, this is really a topic about corporate governance, and one of the most important things that you do as an executive team, as a CEO, and as a board member, is to ensure long-term health of a company. And you've heard us talk about this, probably about long-term health of Nexon, probably more than you want to remember. And, but we are really serious about it, and a lot of people talk about corporate governance.
But we've seen the results of a lot of challenges in a lot of other companies, who haven't gotten their act together with succession planning. And we think this is an incredibly important topic for a team to address head on and proactively. And, I'll tell you, it doesn't just start one day where you decide you want to have a new executive in a position of CEO. You have to plan way ahead. And that's what we must do for the long-term health of the company. And that starts with a great bench of executives around the company. And I am very, very blessed by the privilege of working with an executive team that I consider to be the best in the industry and in around the world.
You know, I've met a lot of game company executives, a lot of game companies, management teams in many different countries around the world, and I would stack our team up against any other team out there. I truly believe that. And you don't have to believe me, you have to look at our results, and I think our results speak for themselves. So this has been in the works for some time, and you probably noticed that Junghun joined our board of directors last March. And that was proper and all part of the same piece.
[Foreign language]そして、また、このJunghun氏につきましては、3月にまず取締役に着任いたしましたので、そういったプロセスを経て、準備を整えてきたということになります。
I'm sorry. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question directly, but let me just add just one data point to remind you of. You know, a lot of the eyes are on the new products that launch. Our industry is often has a deep focus on catalysts, as we've talked about in the past. But think for a minute about the management team that made MapleStory a virtual world that's existed for 20 years. It just grew in this quarter by 59% year-over-year in Korea. That is the work of Junghun and management team below him. That's an astounding number. That's like the, I don't know if it's the right analogy is winning the Triple Crown 5x in a row. It's just unheard of in the video games business globally.
When I tell my friends around the world who work in video games and have done live, have made online games, they can't believe it. And I can tell you, going back to before the IPO, when you and I first met, you and I both know that nobody saw that coming or even one fraction of that. So that's the management team that I've been privileged to work with. And together, we've made a strategy that has worked really well, and I'm very excited about the future of Nexon. As excited, if not more so for the next generation of Nexon. So I hope that answers your question.
[Foreign language]直接、ご質問のお答えになるかわかりませんが、あるデータを紹介させていただきたいと思います。この業界では、その注目されるポイントとしては、やはり新しいプロダクトとなっているわけですが、それが、カタリストであるというこで、注目されるわけですが、メイプルストーリーを取り上げて考えてみますと、バーチャルワールドの中でメイプルストーリーは20年、もう続いた、そのタイトルでありまして、さらにですね、今四半期の韓国における、対前年比の成長率がなんと59%という驚くべき、数字を達成しているというこです。これまさに、Junghun Lee氏ならびに、彼の下のマネジメントチームの功績であるということが言えるかと思います。いわばトリプルクラウンを5回連続獲得するともいっていいような、実績であると言えるのではないかと思います。私の友人でオンラインゲームを開発している人が、これもう本当に信じられないというふうに言っています。そして、IP、あー、IPOの前から、あー、Mori様とは、お付き合いがあると思いますけど、当時、私も、Mori様もこういった、結果が出るなど、予想していなかったのではないかと思います。この何分の之結果が出ることすらも予想していなかったのではないかと思います。そして、私自身はこのような、Junghun Lee氏ならびに彼のマネジメントチームと一緒にででき、仕事をやってくることができたこと、非常に恵まれていたというふうに考えております。また、戦略についても、こういったチームと一緒になって、作り上げてきた戦略でありますので、将来にわたって、次の世代にわたって、続けられるものではないかと思っております。
[Foreign language]ありがとうございます。ちょっと長くなってしまいますので、もう一点だけすみません。THE FINALSについて、えーと、私もお伺いしたいんですが、あの、先ほどの第4クォーターの前提を踏まえますと、あの、なんとなく織り込んでいる金額が、あの、わかりますけど、えーと、結構そのゆっくり立ち上げにしては大きいなというふうに感じております。まあ、ゆっくり立ち上げていっても、初速でこのくらい出るという考え方で、あの、いいのか、つまり来期にかけて、あの、どんどん大きくなっていくという、あの、期待感を持ってていいのかというところを改めて確認させてください。あと、あのマーケティングの考え方なんですが、えーと、第4クォーター、かなり広告宣伝費が増える前提でおります。それ は です ね 、 ローンチに伴ってというこ と で い い の か 、 まあ しばらく 、 えー 、 あの 、 ゲーム の ...
[Foreign language]ごめんなさい、ユーザー獲得のフェーズは続くので、まあこの規模の広告宣伝というのは、来年も、あの、しばらく続くと思って置いていいでしょうか？あの、教えてください。以上です。
I'm taking rather a long time, but I would like to also ask about the expectation towards The Finals. I understand that the contribution from The Finals are factored into the fourth quarter assumptions. But if the assumptions in the fourth quarter is a slow ramp up, the amount that I can calculate from your numbers is rather large. And can we interpret this as being the initial stage of the ramp up being this large? In other words, in the following quarters or towards next fiscal year, this amount will be growing quite rapidly?
D o I have the correct expectation? And my another question is with regards to the marketing. I do understand that in the fourth quarter, the advertising and promotion expenses will be raised, and that is in line. That is for the preparation of the launch. And I believe for the time being, you are going to be in the phase of user acquisition. Am I correct to understand that that phase will continue into the next fiscal year? Hi, let me reconfirm the numbers that I mentioned for the fourth quarter related to The Finals.
I said that roughly half of the year-on-year growth in North America and Europe in the fourth quarter is expected to come from the finals. So and as [Morita] mentioned, it's possible to do the math and we do believe that this is a reasonable assumption. We have not disclosed the launch timing. We're simply saying it's going to be within the year. So, once again, it's going to be a half of the year-on-year growth of North America and Europe. With regards to the positioning of the finals, we are expecting the finals to become the fourth pillar on top of the MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter and FC Online.
So, we are prepared to spend a long, rather long time to grow this title to ensure that the title will have sufficient longevity. As everybody commented, our stance is not to expect a huge sales in this first phase. But we will be implementing various measures by monitoring the situation so that this title will be enjoyed by a lot of players and will become the fourth pillar of our titles. And your question related to the marketing investment, it's quite natural for us to make upfront investment for marketing, for major launches, and we do factor them in, in the fourth quarter.
But, as I have said before, it will depend on the timing and the situation. So if you look at the quarterly marketing investments, there are volatilities, ups and downs. But let me explain how we think about marketing investment on a full year basis. If we look at the past record, usually as a result, we have spent roughly 7%-10% of the sales on marketing. So, for this title as well, including this, the fourth quarter, the range of marketing spend will be along those lines, like, 8%-9%. And, in the future as well, we will monitor the situation.
And once we see the solid revenue potential, we will look at ROI to determine the level of marketing investment. So on full-year basis, roughly speaking, the marketing spend will be around 7%-10% range of the sales.
Thank you very much.
[Foreign language] The next question is from Yijia Zhai of Macquarie Capital Limited. Please.
[Foreign language]
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to ask you questions. I have two questions in total. The first question is about the succession plan of the CEO. And while Owen was taking on the leadership, I understand that Nexon tried new waters. For example, you have acquired Embark Studios as well as other, and you have tried other new endeavors as well. And I think that Mr. Lee is succeeding in recording greater performance and earnings. But what kind of expectations should I have towards Mr. Lee regarding his challenging spirit, and what kind of new waters like strategies he might be pursuing?
Well, thanks for your question. I have one more quarter as CFO, so I'll be also seeing you next quarter. Excuse me, as CEO, not CFO. Sorry about that. I have one more quarter as CEO, and so I'll be talking more about this exact topic next quarter. And you'll be hearing both of us talk more about this, you know, in the lead up to March. So that's the first point.
[Foreign language]
But what I'd say in the meantime is, you know, as you've heard us say before, Junghun and I have worked extremely closely together. We both work closely together. We're also, I would consider us very close personal friends. And, together with the rest of the executive team, we've spent a great deal of time architecting a strategy that we've articulated to all of you, as well as to our employees and to our customers. And that is, we're very much aligned on those topics.
[Foreign language]
But the last thing I'd say is that, you know, any, any leader of a large creative organization faces a challenge, which is to how to continue to make sure your current business is going well while also building for a longer term future. And we have taken very much of a barbell approach, to that strategy. That is, we have really focused on executing on our on building our live virtual world franchises, on the one side that, you know, generate a great deal of, stable growth for us. And at the same time, we've also made some, targeted, very targeted, very thought out, calculated bets in the future.
A CEO that's serious about innovation, we think a leader and an executive team that's serious about innovation has to keep those two things, taking care of today's business and taking care of tomorrow's business or innovation, you know, deeper innovation. You have to keep that in dynamic balance, and that's a very tricky thing to do. But any major innovation company, whether they're in technology or media or what have you, the ones we've always admired, have handled that very well. And Junghun and I have had long conversations about this over the years, and we and the rest of the executive team are very dedicated to both taking care of today's business and then also taking targeted, prudent bets on the future.
We really think that this quarter proves out the wisdom of that, that strategy and also the execution that the teams have been able to pull off on that strategy, that approach.
[Foreign language]大規模なクリエイティブ企業のリーダーというのは、常に二つのことを考えて行かなければなりません。すなわち、現行のビジネスをどう成長し続けていくのか。そして二つ目は、もっと長期的な展望で、将来に向けた形での施策というのを打っていかなければなりません。で、私どもの会社ではバーベルアプローチというのを取っております。これは一方で、ライブ運用するバーチャルワールドを安定的な成長の途につかせるという施策を打つ。もう一方では、将来に向けて照準を合わせた、じっくり考え抜いた結果、賭けをするというような、イノベーションを生む。この二つを常に追求しています。常にリーダーというのは、現在と、そして深い意味でのイノベーションを実現できる未来、この二つを睨んで行かなければいかないと思います。で、この二つのバランスというのはダイナミックなバランスでありますので、とりわけテクノロジー系の会社であったりとか、メディア系の会社にとっては、この二つのバランスを取ることが重要であり、私どもが大変この会社は素晴らしいなと感じている企業様は、この二つのバランスをうまく取っているところです。で、この点に関しては、ジョンと長年にわたって語っておりますし、我々取締役全員、常に現在をどうするのかと、それから未来を見据えた形で照準を合わせた賢い賭けをするという姿勢を取っております。で、このような戦略またはアプローチが成功したということが、特にこの第三四半期の結果が物語っているのではないかと思います。
[Foreign language]はい、ありがとうございます。では、二つ目の質問ですけども、あのです、ここはメイプルストーリーの中国の方ですけども、あの、もともと期待感あんまり高くなくて。で、私の理解ではメイプルストーリーも中国で認知度そこまで高くないというようなIPですけども、あの、テンセントさんもリリース直前はそこまで売れてないというふうにコメントがあって。あの、結果的にすごく良い結果になってまして、あの、ここは、あの、ヒットになった理由についても少しあの、説明していただけますか？それと同時に、中国の全体的なモバイルヒットの競争の環境についてもコメントをいただけたらというふうに思っております。
Thank you. I would like to move on to the second question, which is MapleStory in China, and I know that to begin with, the expectations toward this title was not that high. Given my understanding that the awareness level of this title in China is not that high, and I see that you did not spend much on promoting MapleStory in China, but then you were able to get some results, as you have mentioned. So I want to know the overall landscape of the mobile title environment in China and the background of how you were able to get the results that you have mentioned.
はい。メイプルストーリーモバイルに関してなんですけども、まあ確かに我々の想定よりもかなりいい結果を得られております。で、理由としては、まあそれなりにやっぱりメイプルストーリーのIPというのは、まあそんなに韓国ほどではないですけども、中国でも知られてると。
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]我々長年メイプルストーリーPCを中国でやってきてますので、やっぱり一定のファンはそこにいらっしゃるということです。で、モバイル版が出てきて、非常に懐かしいと思って入られた方、あるいは、まあ、そういうメイプルストーリーのIPを知っている方が今遊んでくれているというふうに考えています。ちょっと分かりやすく言うならば、韓国の風の王国みたいな感じですね。非常に懐かしいタイトルで、モバイル版が出てきたということで、再燃の人気になってるというような形ですので、まあやっぱり中国においてもメイプルストーリーのIPというのはそれなりには強いというふうに考えています。
Regarding the MapleStory mobile in China, we were able to significantly outperform our expectations. It is not as well known as in Korea, but the MapleStory IP itself has a certain level of awareness in China, and especially we provided the MapleStory PC in China. We have a fan base already. People who have played MapleStory PC in the past, when they saw the mobile version, they thought, oh, wow, I used to play this before, and maybe that was one of the enticing factors to draw them to try playing in MapleStory mobile. I guess that is one of the reasons why they started playing in MapleStory mobile. I think it is quite similar to the situation of The Kingdom of the Winds in Korea.
We had a PC version, and then we launched the mobile version and people were used to play The Kingdom of the Winds on PC. They felt at home playing the mobile again, and that led to the popularity of the mobile version. And once again, I repeat, but the MapleStory IP itself is known in China through its past history of PC.
[Foreign language]はい、ありがとうございます。すみません。ちょっと中国の全体的な市場環境についてのコメントをいただけないでしょうか。
Okay. Thank you very much. I would like you to comment on the overall market landscape in China.
[Foreign language]はい。中国におけるモバイル市場なんですけども、まあ、あの、我々は我々出しているタイトルの状況はよくわかりますけども、その他のことに関してはよくわかっておりませんので、えーと、まあ当然大きなマーケットですし、チャンスがあれば、そして中国ユーザーに合うようなものがあれば準備をしたりして行きたいと思っておりますけども、ちょっと全体のランドスケープに関するコメントを差し控えさせていただきたいと思います。
Regarding mobile games in China, of course, we know much about how our titles are doing in China, but we don't have much information regarding other mobile titles in China. Of course, China is a very large market, so if there is any business opportunity, we would like to prepare the titles that will resonate with the Chinese users. But I would like to refrain from making any comment on the general China mobile market.
[Foreign language]よく理解できました。ありがとうございます。
I understood very well. Thank you very much.
[Foreign language]次の質問者はMST Financial Services、デビッド・ギブソン様です。それでは、質問者様、質問をお願いします。
We will next like to take questions from Mister David Gibson of MST Financial Services. Mister Gibson, please go ahead.
Thank you. Just as per earlier discussion about the operating margin for the year for next year, do you think it's possible that it might improve a further 5 percentage points as it did in 2023, or you're expected to do in 2023?
[Foreign language]ありがとうございます。営業利益率の来年の見通しについての質問です。2023年度と同様に、2024年度も5パーセンテージポイント改善する見込みでしょうか。
[Foreign language]はい。まあ、これ。マージンに関しては、我々基本的にはあの、ターゲットとするのは、やはり売上げのグロースと、まあ営業利益のグロースを非常に重視しております。で、マージンはその時のビジネスの状況によって変化するというふうに考えております。理由としては、当然コンペティティブなマーケットの中で人材に投資する必要もある時もありますし。
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]あるいは、例えばタイトルですね。内部のタイトルがいいとき、あるいは外部のタイトルがいいときありますので、そういったときにはマージンが当然変わってくるということです。ですから、我々マージンにフォーカスするというよりは、売上高の絶対値と営業利益の絶対値、その成長を求めて行きたいというふうに考えてます。まあ、従って、FY2023に関しては、大体34%で5%改善するだろうというふうに言いましたけども、FY2024に関しては、明確なことは言うのは難しいです。
With regards to OP margin, actually, our target KPIs are sales or top line revenue and the amount of operating profit. With regards to the margin ratio, it fluctuates depending on the business situation. The reasons can be, for example, due to the competitive environment, we in some cases need to make investment into our human resources. Another example can be the difference between in-house title development and outside title development, which direction we choose, and that will impact our margin ratio. So our focus is not OP margin, but rather the absolute amount of the revenue and operating profit. In the FY 2023, we did say that it is at 34% and five percentage point improvement.
But we would like to refrain from making any comment on the margin ratio for FY 2024.
Thank you so much. Quick one on THE FINALS. Can you give us an image on... This is unusual because it's multi-platform. Can you sense for the players, is it equal across PC, Xbox, PlayStation, or is it mainly PC and then PlayStation and Xbox? Just wanting kind of relative size. Thank you.
[Foreign language]ありがとうございます。次の質問、The Finalsについてですけど、イメージとして教えていただきたいんですけど、珍しくマルチプラットフォームなタイトルであると認識しておりますけど、プレイヤーは、PC、Xbox、PlayStationで、同じ共通プレイヤーでしょうか、また同じくらいのプレイヤー数を想定されてますでしょうか。はい、現在ところ、まだその部分に関して開示しておりません。
So far, we have not disclosed the information.
Okay, arigato. Final one. To Owen, all the best. You're doing a great job. To give one here reflects that and respects you immensely. You've given a great explanation today of why Nexon will be in great hands with Mr. Lee, no doubt about it. But I haven't quite worked out why you are stepping aside. 56 years old? It's not that old. Is this personal? Do you want a new challenge? Did the board come to you or did you suggest it? I just kind of want to understand why you want to make this happen, whereas, you know, clearly that you think you've got a fantastic team behind you.
[Foreign language]ありがとうございます。次の質問ですけど、Owenさんが、なぜCEOを辞任するという判断をされたのかということにについてお伺いしたいと思います。先ほどの説明で、後任が、非常に優秀であると、そして素晴らしいチームが引き継ぐということを非常にうまく説明されたと思います。ですが、一方で、Owenさんご自身がどういった判断で、その辞任されるということを決められたのか、個人的な理由なのか、また新たなチャレンジをしたくなったのか、そのあたりを教えてください。
Thanks for your question. So, honestly, it's no more complex than what we said in our prepared remarks and what I've been saying during the Q&A. Look, I've been in the box for 10 years now. That's way beyond what I understand the average to be for a public company CEO. It is right and proper for a company that is serious about long-term growth to be very serious about succession planning. You know, we've observed companies that we really admire really struggle with this topic. You know, I, I think everybody on this call has watched some great companies really have a challenge with this topic of succession planning, where, you know, the CEO doesn't can't draw on a great bench of great people.
And therefore, the company and the shareholders, and the employees, the customers, they all suffer. And we don't want that to happen to us. So, we're dead serious about this topic of long-term growth. And, so we wanna, we wanna be way ahead of this, and we think that that's what good corporate governance is and mature, thoughtful management is all about. So it's, it's really nothing more complex than that.
Arigato gozaimasu. Thank you very much.
[Foreign language]今の質問についてですが、何も複雑な背景があるわけではありません。これまで説明していただいた、またQAの中で回答していただいた通り、まあ、非常にあのシンプルな理由です。私、十年勤めております -
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]上場企業の平均的なCEOの在任期間は、はるかに超えているということだと思います。ですから、会社として長期的な成長を実現するためには、やはりその次のCEOにハンドオーバーするというのが正しいことであり、適切なことであると。サクセッション、サクセッションプランが非常に重要であると真剣に捉える必要があるというふうに考えております。他の企業で非常に尊敬されている企業であったとしても、サクセッションプランで苦労しているところはあるのではないかと思っております。皆さん、このコールに参加されている方々は目にしてきたと思いますが、偉大な企業であったとしても、サクセッションプランに苦戦している。それは、そのいわゆるベンチに、その有能なチームが育成できていないからではないかと思っております。そういう状況では、会社としても株主に対しても、お客様も従業員もいいものが提供できない、苦しむということになるとと思います。ですから、我々の場合は、長期的な企業を、長期的な成長を実現するということを真摯に考えたときに、やはり先んじてサクセッションプランをしっかりと実行していく必要があると。それこそがコーポレートガバナンスであると。成熟したマネジメントのあり方であるというふうに考えました。
So the last thing I would say, just very briefly, is that if you do have that framework in mind, when is the right time to execute on a succession plan? The right time to do it is when the company is in great shape and is set up for even more success in the future, and then to draw on it. You don't want to do it when the company is in trouble. You don't want to hand over problems to the next generation of leadership. It's hard enough to be a leader. But so what we've done is execute a thoughtful, you know, planned out, you know, premeditated approach to succession planning when the company is firing on all cylinders. And we very much believe that.
We think now is a great time to execute on the succession plan.
[Foreign language]最後のコメントとしては、我々、こういった枠組みを念頭に置き、サクセッションプランを実行する適切なタイミングを考えてまいりましたが、やはり素晴らしい業績を出している時こそ、そして未来に向けて成長の見通しが明るくなっている時こそが、適切なサクセッションのタイミングであるというように考えております。会社が苦労している時、あるいは問題を抱えている時は、次世代にその問題を引き継ぐというのは正しいやり方ではないと思います。会社を率いるとというのは、それぞれのものが非常に大変な仕事でありますので、やはり順調であると。そして、そのあらゆる方向でその施策が打たれている、成長がそのまます勢いのある状態、まさに今こそがサクセッションプランを実行するタイミングであると。熟考された、練られた、準備されたプランを実行するタイミングであるというように考えております。
So you won't be taking up the role at PlayStation then?
[Foreign language]では、PlayStationで次の仕事をされるということではないんですね。
I am very happy to be continuing to serve on the board of NEXON and support Junghun and serving as an advisor for the company. So I'm very happy with my situation, but thanks for the nice joke.
[Foreign language]私は、今後もですね、ジョン・ホン氏をサポートする立場で、取締役としても留まりますし、相談役としても留まると いうことで、次期経営陣を喜んでサポートしようと考えておりますが。ああ、素晴らしいジョークありがとうございました。
Arigatou gozaimashita. Thank you.
Thank you.
This concludes the question-and-answer session. Mr. Kawai, at this time, I'd like to turn the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.
[Foreign language] ありがとうございます。予定のお時間を過ぎましたので、これにて決算電話会議を終了したいと思います。本日はご多忙の中、株式会社ネクソンの決算電話会議へのご参加、ありがとうございました。何かご質問などございましたら、当社IRチーム宛にご連絡ください。電子メールでご連絡いただく場合は、investors@nexon.co.jp宛にご連絡ください。
Thank you. There is no further question, and the time is up. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation in this call. Please feel free to contact the Nexon Investor Relations at investors@nexon.co.jp should you have any further questions.
Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.