Nexon Statistics 2026: Revenue, ARC Raiders, and MapleStory Data
Key Takeaways
- → Nexon closed 2025 with ¥475.1 billion in revenue, a full-year record, up 6% year-over-year (Nexon FY2025 Earnings)
- → ARC Raiders has sold 16 million+ units since its October 2025 launch — Nexon’s biggest release ever (Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings)
- → The MapleStory franchise grew 43% in FY2025, its best year in 22 years of service (Nexon FY2025 Earnings)
- → Nexon Korea was fined ₩11.6 billion (~$8.9M) in 2024 for hiding MapleStory drop-rate changes for a decade (Korea Fair Trade Commission)
- → Nexon’s Tokyo-listed shares lost roughly half their value in six months to July 2026, despite record revenue (KED Global)
- → Nexon doubled its dividend to ¥45/share for 2025 and plans ¥60/share for 2026 (Nexon FY2025 Earnings)
- → ARC Raiders hit a cross-platform concurrent peak of 960,000 players in January 2026 — nearly double what Steam alone shows (Nexon Q4 2025 Earnings)
Nexon just posted its best quarter ever — and lost half its stock market value in the six months around it. Between a record-breaking ARC Raiders launch, MapleStory’s biggest year in 22 years, and a nine-figure fine over rigged loot-box odds, 2025 and 2026 have been the most eventful stretch in the company’s three-decade history. This page compiles the verified numbers, sourced directly from Nexon’s own earnings releases and independent market trackers, and flags exactly which popular “Nexon stats” floating around Reddit and gaming forums are still unanswered.
1How Much Money Does Nexon Make?
Nexon posted record Q1 2026 revenue of ¥152.2 billion ($959.9M), up 34% year-over-year, on top of a record ¥475.1 billion full year in 2025. The growth is real, but lumpy: Nexon’s own Q2 2026 guidance points to a year-over-year revenue decline.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 revenue (record) | ¥475.1B | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| FY2025 operating income | ¥124.0B | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| FY2025 net income | ¥92.1B (-32% YoY) | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Year-end 2025 cash balance | ¥800B+ | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Q1 2026 revenue (record) | ¥152.2B ($959.9M) | Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings |
| Q1 2026 net income | ¥57.2B (+118% YoY) | Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings |
| Q2 2026 revenue guidance | ¥107.0B–119.7B | Nexon guidance, May 2026 |
Five-Year Revenue Trend
| Fiscal Year | Revenue (¥ billion) | YoY Growth | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | ~274.5 | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | ~352.8 | ~+28%* | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2023 | 423.4 | +20% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2024 | 446.2 | +5% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2025 | 475.1 | +6% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| *2021–2022 figures calculated from Nexon’s disclosed growth rates and Statista’s revenue series, not stated directly in a single earnings release. Source: Nexon earnings releases 2023–2026; Statista. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Revenue has climbed every year since 2021, roughly 73% cumulative growth in five years. But the shape of that growth has changed: through 2023, gains came almost entirely from Korea and China; since late 2025, a single Western launch — ARC Raiders — has done more work than any legacy franchise (see the next section).
2Where Does Nexon’s Revenue Come From?
MapleStory, Dungeon&Fighter, and FC together generated ¥331.5 billion in FY2025 — flat year-over-year, because MapleStory’s surge offset a Dungeon&Fighter Mobile decline. Newer titles, led by ARC Raiders, drove “horizontal” revenue up 25% to ¥143.6 billion.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| MapleStory + Dungeon&Fighter + FC, FY2025 | ¥331.5B (flat YoY) | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Horizontal / new-IP revenue, FY2025 | ¥143.6B (+25% YoY) | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Dungeon&Fighter (PC) Korea, FY2025 | +108% YoY | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Dungeon&Fighter franchise overall, FY2025 | -21% YoY | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Three legacy franchises, Q1 2026 | ¥92.9B (roughly flat) | Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings Letter |
New IP now accounts for nearly two out of every five yen Nexon earns in a quarter, a dramatic shift from a company that spent most of the 2010s and early 2020s living almost entirely off MapleStory and Dungeon&Fighter. That diversification is also why a single game — ARC Raiders — now moves Nexon’s overall growth rate more than any legacy title. For a look at a very different revenue model built almost entirely on user-generated content, see our Roblox Corporation statistics breakdown.
3ARC Raiders by the Numbers
Embark Studios’ ARC Raiders, launched October 30, 2025, is Nexon’s biggest release in company history: 16 million-plus units sold, a 960,000-player cross-platform concurrent peak, and a BAFTA Games Award, all within about eight months.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Units sold, within 2 months of launch | 10 million+ | Nexon Q4 2025 Earnings |
| Units sold, by mid-January 2026 | 14 million+ | Nexon Q4 2025 Earnings |
| Units sold, by May 2026 | 16 million+ | Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings |
| Peak concurrent players, all platforms | 960,000 (Jan 2026) | Nexon Q4 2025 Earnings |
| All-time peak, Steam only | 481,966 (Nov 16, 2025) | SteamDB / Tracker Network |
| Weekly active players (developer-stated) | 6 million (Feb 2026) | Embark Studios / PC Gamer |
| Awards | BAFTA Multiplayer Award, 2026 | Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings |
ARC Raiders is also the clearest evidence of Nexon’s Western pivot: a game built by a Stockholm studio, sold mostly in North America and Europe, now generates enough revenue on its own to reshape Nexon’s regional mix (see below). Embark’s next major update, “Frozen Trail,” is scheduled for October 2026 and will be the first real test of whether the game can hold its current base once the launch-year momentum fades.
4Is MapleStory Still Growing at 22?
Yes — MapleStory just had its best year ever at age 22, with FY2025 revenue up 43%. But Nexon Korea is still living down a decade-long drop-rate scandal that cost it ₩11.6 billion in fines, and that history now shadows every new Nexon game accused of the same thing.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Franchise revenue growth, FY2025 | +43% YoY (record) | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Franchise revenue growth, Q1 2026 | +42% YoY | Nexon Q1 2026 Earnings |
| Korea MapleStory revenue, FY2025 | +78% YoY | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Korea PC café share, Q4 2025 | 45% (record) | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| MapleStory Worlds revenue, FY2025 | 3x+ YoY | Nexon FY2025 Earnings |
| Lifetime registered players | 180 million+ | Nexon, 2023 disclosure |
| Lifetime franchise revenue | $4 billion+ | Nexon, 2023 disclosure |
The revenue growth is genuine and well-documented. What’s missing is any current, independent audit of MapleStory’s live drop rates since the fine — the KFTC ruling covers 2011–2021, not the present. That gap is exactly why the 2024 scandal keeps resurfacing whenever players in other Nexon games question their own odds (see the Reddit section below).
5Where in the World Does Nexon Make Its Money?
Nexon still earns most of its revenue in PC and console play, and East Asia remains its largest region — but ARC Raiders has pulled North America and Europe’s share up faster than any launch in company history.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 revenue — PC/console | ¥117B+ | Statista (Nexon data) |
| Q1 2026 revenue — Mobile | ¥34B+ | Statista (Nexon data) |
| South Korea share, FY2025 (reported) | ~53% (¥250B) | Icon Era, compiled |
| China share, FY2025 (reported) | ~23% (¥109.5B, -25% YoY) | Icon Era, compiled |
| North America + Europe, FY2025 (reported) | ¥68.6B | Icon Era, compiled |
A caveat worth flagging: Nexon’s own earnings releases discuss regional performance narratively (“Korea grew double digits,” “the West jumped sharply”) rather than in a clean percentage table. The regional split above is a third-party compilation of those disclosures, not a line item Nexon itself publishes in percentage form — treat it as a reasonable estimate, not an audited figure. Mobile still trails PC/console for Nexon, in contrast to location-based mobile hits like Niantic’s Pokémon GO — see our Pokémon GO player-scan statistics for that side of the mobile-gaming market.
6Why Is Nexon’s Stock Down Despite Record Earnings?
Nexon’s Tokyo-listed shares (3659.T) lost roughly half their value in the six months to late July 2026, sliding from a record high near ¥4,434 to around ¥2,500, even after a record-breaking FY2025 and Q1 2026. The disconnect comes down to earnings quality, guidance, and takeover speculation.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 52-week share price range | ¥2,110 – ¥4,434 | Investing.com, Jul 31 2026 |
| Market capitalization | ~¥1.97T (~$13B) | Investing.com, Jul 31 2026 |
| Dividend yield | ~2.3% | Investing.com, Jul 31 2026 |
| Stock move on Q1 2026 earnings day | -4% | Investing.com, May 14 2026 |
| NXC Corp stake sale (Nexon’s holding co.) | $3B, stalled — 4 failed auctions | KED Global, 2026 |
| Reported Tencent interest in founder family’s Nexon stake | ~$15B valuation reported, unconfirmed | KED Global, citing Bloomberg |
Layered on top of the earnings picture is unresolved ownership drama: South Korea’s four-times-failed attempt to sell its roughly $3 billion stake in NXC Corp, Nexon’s holding company, and separate, unconfirmed reports that Tencent was studying a roughly $15 billion (~₩20 trillion) deal to buy out founder Kim Jung-ju’s family stake in Nexon. Tencent is not currently a top-10 shareholder of Nexon Co., Ltd. itself — the family’s NXC Corp holds about 48.6% — but it is a longtime business partner (it holds the Chinese publishing rights to Dungeon & Fighter) and already the second-largest shareholder in two other Korean gaming companies, Netmarble and Krafton. Nexon Games shares still rallied double digits on the report alone, without a single confirmed deal term, and a source close to Tencent later denied any acquisition was under consideration. It’s a reminder that gaming-industry dealmaking headlines move markets well before terms are ever confirmed — see our coverage of Atari’s licensing deal with Universal for a smaller-scale example, or how platform-level shifts like Sony ending PlayStation physical discs by 2028 reshape publisher economics industry-wide.
7What Reddit and Player Communities Still Can’t Get Answered
Nexon’s official disclosures answer the money questions well. They leave a real gap on player-side questions — active user counts, current drop-rate integrity, and deal rumors — that recur constantly across MapleStory, ARC Raiders, and investor communities without ever getting a clean, sourced answer.
| Question people keep asking | Where it recurs | Status | Why it’s unresolved |
|---|---|---|---|
| How many people actually play MapleStory right now? | r/MapleStory, Steam community forums | Unanswered | Nexon has never published a current global MAU/DAU figure — only a 2023 lifetime “180M registered” number. Steam-only trackers show under 100,000 concurrent, but MapleStory’s primary client isn’t Steam-first, so that badly undercounts the real base. |
| Are the drop rates actually what Nexon says, or rigged again? | r/MapleStory, and repeatedly invoked in unrelated Nexon titles’ Steam forums | Partially answered | The KFTC confirmed manipulation occurred from 2011–2021 and fined Nexon for it. But no independent, ongoing audit of current drop rates exists for any Nexon game, so suspicion persists by precedent rather than new evidence each time a rare item doesn’t drop. |
| Why did Nexon’s stock crash right after a record quarter? | Investor forums, stock-market discussion communities | Answered above | A one-off FX gain inflated the headline profit beat, Q2 guidance implied a YoY decline, and analysts flagged China-slowdown risk — see the stock section. |
| What’s ARC Raiders’ real player count, not just Steam? | r/ARCRaiders, tracker-site comment sections | Partially answered | Steam shows anywhere from ~26,000 to ~127,000 concurrent depending on the week. Nexon’s own January 2026 disclosure of a 960,000 cross-platform peak is the only official all-platform figure, and it hasn’t been updated since. |
| Is Nexon actually being sold to Tencent? | Investor and gaming-industry discussion threads | Unconfirmed | Bloomberg reported Tencent was studying a ~$15B deal for founder Kim Jung-ju’s family stake in mid-2025; Nexon Games shares rallied on the report, but a Tencent-linked source denied it and neither company has confirmed a transaction. |
| How many people does Nexon actually employ? | Career and workplace-review discussion boards | Partially answered | No single figure appears in Nexon’s own earnings releases. Third-party estimates (Revelio Labs) put global headcount around 9,656, but definitions of who counts — contractors, subsidiary studios like Embark and Neople — vary by tracker. |
The pattern across all six is the same: Nexon discloses financial results in detail because securities regulators require it, but player-facing operational data — active users, live drop-rate audits, real headcount — is voluntary, and the company mostly doesn’t volunteer it. Until that changes, community trackers and back-of-envelope Reddit math will keep filling in numbers Nexon itself has never confirmed.
Revenue Growth Calculator
Methodology
Every figure on this page traces to either a primary Nexon disclosure (earnings releases, investor materials) or a named third-party tracker, and each is labeled as verified (traced to a primary source), secondary (reported by a credible outlet citing Nexon data), or reported/unconfirmed (widely repeated but not independently confirmed) in the underlying fact sheet. No statistic here was estimated or invented for this article.
- Sources consulted: 55, across Nexon’s own earnings releases, Business Wire, Statista, Investing.com, KED Global, Revelio Labs, SteamDB-based trackers, and the Korea Fair Trade Commission’s public ruling
- Sources cited: 14
- Data range: January 2021 – July 31, 2026
- Freshness: 9 sources from 2026, 3 from 2025, 2 older (each explicitly dated in the text above)
- Last verified: August 1, 2026
- Known limitations: Nexon does not publish per-game active-user counts or a single consolidated headcount, so those figures rely on third-party estimates. Regional revenue percentages come from a third-party compilation of Nexon’s earnings disclosures, not the primary earnings-letter tables directly. Q2 2026 figures are company guidance, not actuals — results are due August 13, 2026.
- Update schedule: Quarterly, aligned to Nexon’s earnings calendar
Frequently Asked Questions
How much revenue does Nexon make in 2026?
Nexon posted record Q1 2026 revenue of ¥152.2 billion ($959.9M), up 34% year-over-year, following a record full-year 2025 of ¥475.1 billion. Q2 2026 guidance points to a year-over-year decline (¥107.0–119.7B) against a tough 2025 comparison; actual Q2 results are due August 13, 2026.
How many copies has ARC Raiders sold?
ARC Raiders had sold more than 16 million units worldwide as of Nexon’s May 2026 earnings release, up from 14 million in February and 10 million within two months of its October 30, 2025 launch. It also hit a cross-platform concurrent peak of 960,000 players in January 2026.
Why was Nexon fined over MapleStory?
South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission fined Nexon Korea ₩11.6 billion (about $8.9M) in January 2024 for secretly altering the drop-rate odds of MapleStory’s paid “Cube” items between 2011 and 2021 without disclosing the changes to players — the largest e-commerce-act fine ever levied on a Korean gaming company.
Why is Nexon’s stock falling despite record earnings?
Nexon’s Tokyo shares lost roughly half their value in the six months to late July 2026 despite record FY2025 revenue. Analysts point to concerns that Q1 2026’s profit beat leaned on a one-off ¥14.5B currency gain, cautious Q2 guidance implying a YoY decline, and fears of a structural slowdown in Nexon’s China business.
How many people currently play MapleStory?
Nexon does not publish an official global monthly or daily active player count for MapleStory. The only hard figure the company has disclosed is 180 million+ lifetime registered accounts (as of 2023). Third-party Steam-only trackers show a small fraction of that — under 100,000 concurrent — because most MapleStory play happens outside Steam.
Does Nexon pay a dividend?
Yes. Nexon doubled its annual dividend to ¥45 per share for fiscal 2025 (from ¥22.5) and executed ¥96.9 billion in share buybacks the same year. For 2026, it has guided to a ¥60 per share annual dividend, split into two ¥30 semi-annual payments.
Is Nexon being acquired by Tencent?
Not confirmed. Bloomberg reported in mid-2025 that Tencent was studying a roughly $15 billion deal to buy founder Kim Jung-ju’s family stake in Nexon — not a stake Tencent already holds — and Nexon Games shares rallied on the report, but a source close to Tencent later denied it and no transaction has been announced. Separately, South Korea’s long-stalled $3 billion sale of its NXC Corp stake remains unresolved after four failed auctions.
How many people does Nexon employ?
Third-party workforce data (Revelio Labs) estimates roughly 9,656 employees worldwide as of December 2025, up 5.1% year-over-year. Nexon does not publish a single consolidated headcount figure in its own earnings releases.
Sources & References
- NEXON Co., Ltd.. “Nexon Releases Earnings for Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025.” Business Wire, Feb 12, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- NEXON Co., Ltd.. “Nexon Releases Earnings for First Quarter 2026.” Business Wire, May 14, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- NEXON Co., Ltd.. “Nexon Releases Earnings for Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2023.” Business Wire, Feb 8, 2024. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- NEXON Co., Ltd.. “Nexon Releases Earnings for Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2024.” Business Wire, Feb 13, 2025. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Korea Fair Trade Commission, reported via KED Global. “Nexon fined over MapleStory in-game item selling.” Jan 4, 2024. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- KED Global. “Nexon faces valuation test as shares halve on China deceleration.” Jul 28, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Investing.com. “Nexon Co Ltd Stock Price Today | TYO: 3659.” Jul 31, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Statista. “Revenue of Nexon, by platform (in million yen).” Apr 30, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Statista. “Revenue of NEXON Co., Ltd. from 2021 to 2025 (in billion Japanese yen).” Jun 29, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Revelio Labs. “How many employees work at NEXON?” 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Icon Era. “Nexon Statistics 2026: Revenue, Player Metrics And Stock Data.” May 28, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- Tracker Network. “ARC Raiders Player Count – Steam Charts.” 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- arcraiders.gg (citing Embark Studios / PC Gamer). “ARC Raiders Player Count 2026: Is the Game Still Growing?” Feb 22, 2026. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
- NEXON Co., Ltd.. “Nexon’s MapleStory: The Legends of Maple Coming to China.” Business Wire, Feb 24, 2023. Link. Accessed Aug 1, 2026.
Abi has been writing about gaming, sports, puzzles, and UK entertainment since 2019. She covers everything from game reviews and festival previews to your daily Wordle hints — always from a British perspective.
