Artificial Intelligence (AI) service specialist ESTsoft (047560, CEO Jung Sang-won) announced on the 28th through a tentative disclosure that it achieved sales of 88.8 billion won based on K-IFRS consolidated financial statements for the year 2022. Sales for the year 2022 decreased by 0.9% compared to the previous year, and operating profit and net profit turned to losses compared to the previous year.

ESTsoft stated that the disappointing performance compared to the previous year was due to factors including ▲ a decline in PC traffic due to changes in the external environment of the portal business, ▲ a decrease in profits due to the stock market downturn in the asset management business, and ▲ an increase in personnel expenses. Additionally, the company added that proactive investments in AI-based new businesses, such as AI human and eyewear virtual fitting commerce, also affected profitability.

However, the AI new business is growing rapidly. In particular, revenues related to AI human began to be reflected starting from the fourth quarter of 2022, driving the AI new business's on-year sales to more than double. The company expects that as the performance of AI human is fully reflected from the first quarter of this year, it will lead to an increase in sales and improvement in profitability.

ESTsoft is supplying the market with highly sophisticated AI humans close to real-life. In November last year, it established a studio within the company building for the production of world-class high-definition (8K) AI humans. The shooting schedule for the new AI human production studio is already booked until the first half of the year. ESTsoft, marking the construction of the studio, is expanding its AI human business portfolio into various fields such as finance, education, and healthcare. In particular, ESTsoft has collaborated with YBM to produce Korea's first AI TOEIC instructor capable of simultaneous Korean-English utterances, and partnered with Getty Images Korea to host exhibitions using moving AI images, swiftly presenting a variety of services based on AI human. Recently, it has also unveiled an AI human that operates in real-time.

The subsidiary ROUNZ, which runs an eyewear virtual fitting commerce business, also achieved over 30% sales growth in 2022 compared to the previous year, and plans to substantially expand its B2B business this year through partner optician shops secured over the last year. The number of partner opticians grew from about 280 in 2021 to approximately 600 in just one year, doubling in size, and based on this, ROUNZ is focusing on increasing sales and strengthening profitability through its B2B business.

Aside from the AI-based new businesses, the gaming business, portal business, and asset management business, which recorded poor performance due to external factors in 2022, are expected by the company to bring a base effect for performance improvement in 2023 through new game releases and improvements in the external environment.

An ESTsoft representative stated, "Despite the challenging situation throughout last year, aggressive investments in AI new businesses continued for the vision of becoming the best service company based on AI technology," and added, "2023 is expected to be the inaugural year proving the growth and profitability of AI new businesses along with the performance improvement of existing businesses."