NCsoft Corp., one of South Korea's leading online game makers, said Friday its second-quarter net profit advanced 9.3 percent from a year earlier on increased sales from its key online games.

Net profit came to 57.8 billion won ($49.4 million) on a consolidated basis in the January-March period, compared with the 52.9 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales moved up 1.74 percent on-year to reach 217.53 billion won in the second quarter, and operating profit also rose 3.31 percent to 67 billion won over the cited period.

The second-quarter net profit hovered slightly above the median estimate of 51.7 billion won in a poll conducted by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency, on 12 brokerage houses. Its sales estimate was put at 204.2 billion won.

By region, South Korea accounted for 145.4 billion won of the sales, trailed by the North American and European market with 27.4 billion won and Taiwan with 12.3 billion won. The revenue from Japan stood at 11.4 billion won.

Its flagship Lineage 1, a role-playing online game, raked in 85.5 billion won in sales, trailed by Lineage 2, with 16.3 billion won and Aion with 20.1 billion won. That of Blade & Soul came to 29.8 billion won over the cited period.

NCsoft said that Blade & Soul has been gaining strong popularity in the Taiwanese market, adding that the company aims to continue the overall growth by rolling out expansion packages for Guild Wars 2, another role-playing game operated by the firm.

"Based on stable second-quarter earnings, we will expand investment in the mobile market," the company said, adding that it will showcase various mobile projects around the globe through the second half of 2015.

Shares of NCsoft closed 6.99 percent lower at 219,500 won on the Seoul bourse on Thursday. The second-quarter results were released during the trading hours. (Yonhap)