RSUPPORT, once spotlighted as a "contactless beneficiary stock," has seen its operating margin, which approached 40% during COVID-19, sink to the single digits recently, with some quarters in the red, increasing earnings volatility. Since the 2020 peak, the stock price has fallen to about one-ninth, and the past growth story led by remote support and control has run into trouble as global platforms and cloud environments spread.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 10th, RSUPPORT's profitability has fallen sharply compared with the period when it enjoyed the COVID windfall. The annual operating margin reached 39.8% in 2020 but fell to 7.7% in 2024, and it posted operating losses of about 470 million won in the fourth quarter of 2024 and around 1 billion won in the third quarter of this year. With revenue stuck in the 40–50 billion won range, depreciation on a new headquarters, labor costs, and research and development (R&D) expense have increased, leaving the cash generated from operations lower than right after the COVID windfall.
Chief Executive Seo Hyeong-su pledged "double revenue in five years" with "Vision 2025" at the 2021 shareholders meeting, but 2024 revenue was 47.5 billion won, little different from 46.3 billion won in 2020. While revenue was flat, operating profit fell from 18.4 billion won to the 3.6 billion won range, effectively marking the failure of the growth roadmap Seo promised.
This is analyzed as stemming from the end of the COVID windfall and RSUPPORT's relatively weaker competitiveness in "remote technology." The "remote support" feature that once showed strength for A/S is now offered as a basic function to remotely operate the other party's screen during meetings in global collaboration tools such as Microsoft (MS) Teams and Zoom. As functions once offered only by specialized solutions have been partially absorbed into "essential work platforms," there is analysis that, in areas such as simple inquiries or support for internal employees, the incentive to use paid remote support solutions like RSUPPORT separately is no longer as strong as before.
Structural changes in the Japanese market, which accounts for nearly half of total revenue, are also making things difficult for RSUPPORT. With the weak yen persisting, negative exchange-rate effects keep recurring as locally generated revenue is converted into won, and Japan's "digital deficit" is also growing. According to Japan's Ministry of Finance statistics, the deficit in digital-related services widened to around 5 trillion yen in 2023 and is estimated to have topped the 6 trillion yen level for the first time last year. Local outlets including Nikkei analyze that a significant portion of this deficit is flowing out as fees for cloud-based services from U.S. big tech companies such as Microsoft (MS), Amazon, and Google.
This trend is working to erode the budgets of single-solution vendors like RSUPPORT. As Japanese corporations prioritize allocating IT budgets to de facto essential work platforms like MS 365, they have little choice but to adjust and reduce licenses for specialized software with overlapping functions. According to a survey by MM Research Institute in Japan, Zoom and Teams account for more than 80% of the local enterprise web conferencing market.
RSUPPORT's stock price, which surged to the 23,000 won range intraday in 2020, is now trading in the 2,500 won range, lingering at about one-ninth of the peak. There are also burdens on short-term funding. The exchange price of the second exchangeable bond (EB) issued in June last year is 4,610 won, while the closing price on the 9th was about half that. If the stock continues to trade well below the exchange price, investors may exercise a put option to demand principal repayment instead of converting to shares.
An RSUPPORT official said, "It is true that RSUPPORT has built some recognition in the Japanese market, but within the current IT system structure it has come closer to a side solution," and added, "As core developers have left and the product architecture remains tied to the old legacy, it is a problem that trends like cloud and AI are only being followed belatedly."