SOOP: 5x Earnings, 58% Cash Coverage—and Still a Pass
SOOP's valuation is real, but a five-quarter decline in virtual-gift revenue cannot be reduced to temporary app-store friction.
SOOP looks statistically cheap because its balance sheet does most of the work. Conservative adjusted net cash covers 58% of market capitalization, leaving the operating business priced at roughly 1.4x FY2025 EBITDA.
That gap is real. But the reason the stock trades this way is that a five-quarter decline in virtual-gift revenue has not been separated from several overlapping disruptions: an app-store standoff, absent streamers, and competition from Naver’s CHZZK. Q2 may report a rebound. It will not report why.
The result is an interesting valuation with insufficient evidence—a pass for now, not a deeper-work priority.
At a glance
| Snapshot | |
|---|---|
| Listing | KOSDAQ · 067160 |
| Price | KRW47,100 · July 15, 2026 close |
| Market capitalization | KRW502.6bn · US$341m |
| Share performance | 1M -7% · 6M -28% · 1Y -51% |
| Broad valuation | ~5.0x FY2025 P/E · ~5.6x NTM P/E · ~1.4x adjusted EV/FY2025 EBITDA · adjusted net cash 58% of market cap |
Financial snapshot
| KRW bn, except margins | 2021A | 2022A | 2023A | 2024A | 2025A | 2026E | 2027E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 260.5 | 289.1 | 344.0 | 413.2 | 466.6 | 474.6 | 513.4 |
| Growth | 33.6% | 11.0% | 19.0% | 20.1% | 12.9% | 1.7% | 8.2% |
| EBITDA margin | 39.8% | 34.4% | 32.1% | 32.6% | 31.8% | 30.4% | 28.6% |
| Operating cash flow | 133.5 | 100.9 | 119.7 | 157.5 | 121.4 | — | — |
| PP&E purchases | (9.4) | (14.6) | (8.8) | (13.3) | (19.1) | — | — |
| Intangible purchases | (3.9) | (0.7) | (0.6) | (1.4) | (1.8) | — | — |
| Free cash flow | 120.2 | 85.6 | 110.4 | 142.8 | 100.4 | — | — |
Free cash flow is operating cash flow less cash purchases of both PP&E and intangible assets. Parentheses denote cash outflows. Consensus cash-flow estimates were unavailable for 2026–27.1
The business
SOOP, formerly AfreecaTV, operates a Korean live-streaming platform for gaming, sports, and personality content. Its dominant revenue line is platform revenue: virtual gifts called balloons that viewers buy to support creators, plus subscriptions. Advertising is the second monetization engine. Balloons generated about 70% of 2025 revenue.2
In Q1 2026, total revenue fell 1.5% YoY to KRW106.0bn. The mix was worse than the headline: platform revenue fell 12.8% to KRW74.0bn while advertising rose 39.6% to KRW30.5bn. Costs still rose 6.4%, so EBIT fell 24.1% to KRW21.2bn and margin compressed from 26.0% to 20.0%.3
The core decline was not new to Q1. Platform revenue moved from KRW84.9bn in Q1 2025 to KRW84.5bn, KRW84.1bn, KRW77.5bn, and then KRW74.0bn over the next four quarters.3
The app-store explanation is incomplete
SOOP had sold balloons through external payment links inside its Android and iOS apps to avoid the stores’ fees. Google barred that method in April 2025, so SOOP stopped selling balloons through the Play Store version. Apple barred it in November. Viewers could still buy through SOOP’s website or domestic Android stores, but the extra steps created a plausible conversion problem.2
SOOP changed course on April 28, 2026 and restored balloon sales through Apple and Google’s own in-app payment systems. The new access is expensive: a balloon costs KRW160 through the two global stores versus KRW110 on the web, a 45% premium.2
Payment friction should have hurt some purchases. It does not explain the revenue history by itself.
Platform revenue declined gradually across five quarters rather than falling immediately after Google’s restriction. Management also said in April 2025 that Android users had learned to pay through OneStore and that domestic user indicators showed no unusual change.4 The simple thesis—Google broke payments, revenue fell, and the fix restores it—does not fit that sequence.
Competition and content add other explanations. CHZZK reached 3.55m mobile monthly active users in February 2026 versus SOOP’s 2.30m. Yet SOOP averaged about 60,000 concurrent viewers in one March comparison versus 37,000 for CHZZK.5 Attention appeared healthier than monetization, but SOOP does not disclose current payer counts, donation volume, purchase-channel mix, conversion, or retention. The public data cannot show whether viewers switched platforms, watched less monetizable content, or simply encountered more payment friction.
The valuation is real, not decisive
At the July 15 close of KRW47,100, SOOP’s economic market capitalization is KRW502.6bn. FY2025 net income was KRW101.8bn, putting the shares at 4.9x earnings.
The cash adjustment matters because the raw balance sheet includes money that should not be treated as surplus. After deducting KRW208.7bn of customer deposits and short-term deposits received, the KRW36.8bn April dividend payable, borrowings, leases, and KRW4.2bn of pledged deposits, conservative adjusted net cash is KRW293.8bn. That is 58% of market capitalization. Adjusted enterprise value is KRW208.8bn, or 1.4x FY2025 EBITDA of KRW148.4bn.6
FY2025 DPS of KRW3,380 represents a 7.2% trailing yield at KRW47,100. The new capital-return policy floors distributions at 25% of consolidated net income; it does not promise to preserve that dividend.7
The market therefore appears to price structural earnings decline, poor cash realization, or both. The cash is not a hard floor because minority access still depends on management’s payout and capital-allocation decisions.
Why pass
The strongest fact for the bull case is that engagement appears to have held up better than gift monetization, and app-store access has returned. The strongest fact against it is that the platform-revenue decline does not match the timing a pure app-store story would predict. Management’s contemporaneous claim that Android users adapted weakens that explanation further.
Q2 will not isolate the cause. It includes roughly 64 days of restored app access and the return of important streamers, both in the same quarter.8 Even a recovery cannot show how much came from payment convenience, creator mix, or ordinary volatility.
The idea reopens with either operating proof or cash proof. Platform revenue around KRW84bn with margin stabilization would show that the gifting economy can return to its pre-Q4 range, although it would remain causally confounded. A durable cash-return mechanism—a materially higher payout, share cancellation, or funded buyback—would make the balance-sheet discount more realizable.
Below KRW80bn of Q2 platform revenue would increase the structural concern. KRW80–84bn would be partial recovery. About KRW84bn or more would be stronger stabilization evidence.
Until then, SOOP is a cash-backed stabilization bet without clean stabilization evidence.
Evidence through July 15, 2026. Market capitalization and valuation multiples use the KRW47,100 closing share price. Korean press reports are secondary sources for app-store timing, pricing, management comments, and audience comparisons.
Notes
- Price, share performance, standardized historical revenue, and consensus estimates are from Arc market data as of July 15, 2026. Filing-based cash flows and historical margins use SOOP’s FY2025 annual report and FY2023 annual report. EBITDA is EBIT plus reported depreciation and amortization. ↩
- ETNews, May 5, 2026. ↩
- SOOP Q1 2026 earnings deck. ↩
- MoneyToday, April 29, 2025. ↩
- ChosunBiz, March 22, 2026. ↩
- SOOP Q1 2026 report, filed May 15, 2026. ↩
- SOOP value-up policy. ↩
- MoneyToday, May 4, 2026. ↩