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SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Yonhap) — Naver Corp., South Korea’s leading internet portal company, announced Friday that its third-quarter net profits had jumped 53.8 percent from the same period in the previous year, thanks to the strong performance of its commerce, content, and cloud businesses.
Net profits for the July-September quarter totaled 356.2 billion won (US$265.2 million), compared to 231.6 billion won a year earlier, as stated in a regulatory filing.
Operating profits were 380.2 billion won, an increase of 15.1 percent, and sales rose 18.9 percent to 2.44 trillion won.
The results exceeded market expectations. According to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency, the average prediction of net profit was 286.2 billion won.
This file photo shows Naver Corp.'s headquarters in Seongnam, just southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)
The company credited the success to the impressive growth of its commerce, content, and cloud divisions. Revenue from the commerce unit shot up 41.3 percent year-on-year to 647.4 billion won, due to strong sales from Brandstore, Travel, and Kream.
Content sales rose 39.5 percent year-on-year to 434.9 billion won, thanks to the expansion of its global webtoon business, higher sales from Snow, a camera application with photographic filters, and Zepeto, its virtual world platform.
Sales of the cloud unit rose 30.3 percent on-year to 123.6 billion won, thanks to increased demand for whalebook, a cloud-optimized laptop for educational use, and improved business-to-business performance.
Naver’s flagship search platform saw sales increase 0.3 percent year-on-year to 898.5 billion won in the third quarter, while its fintech sales grew 15.1 percent to 340.8 billion won.
“In the third quarter, we have presented our artificial intelligence business direction by unveiling the generative AI service line-up and the profitization road map,” Naver’s CEO Choi Soo-yeon said.
“Also, Naver will accelerate its global expansion using its service and accumulated technological capacity,” Choi added, referencing its digital twin city project for Saudi Arabia.
Last month, Naver announced a deal with the Saudi Arabian government to create a digital twin platform for the country’s capital Riyadh and four other cities.
Kim Nam-sun, Naver’s chief financial officer, announced that the company would buy back and cancel 305.3 billion won of its shares, or the equivalent of 1 percent of the stock outstanding, to boost the stock price. The buyback and cancellation will take place next Tuesday.
“Our capacity to secure stable liquidity for mid-to-long term growth has become much stronger,” Kim noted, referring to the issuance of a combined 20 billion yen worth of Japanese Samurai bonds.
nyway@yna.co.kr
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