April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Internet giant Naver saw its operating profit surpass the 1-trillion-won mark for the first time in its history last year thanks largely to the strong performance of its ad platform and global businesses, according to a regulatory filing on Jan. 26.

The Korean web portal operator earned 1.1 trillion won (US$950 million) in operating profit, up from 762.2 billion won a year earlier, while it posted 4.02 trillion won in revenue as against 3.25 trillion won in 2015.


Related: [NAVER EARNINGS] Naver to release new AI speaker for LINE 

Naver's new CEO Han Seong-sook(left)

In 2016, the firm’s ad business saw its revenue grow 27.8 percent to 2.97 trillion won, accounting for a whopping 73.8 percent of its entire revenue.

Naver’s content and “miscellaneous” businesses earned 924.9 billion won and 130.8 billion won in revenue last year, respectively.

The firm’s global revenue increased 31.8 percent on-year, higher than the growth rate for domestic revenue at 26.4 percent.

During the October-December alone, the ad revenue increased 27.1 percent on-year to 821.9 billion won, accounting for 75.8 percent of the entire quarterly revenue.

The content and miscellaneous businesses earned 224.2 billion won and 38.9 billion won, respectively, in the three months.

Naver’s global revenue in the fourth quarter stood at 374.6 billion won, up 26.4 percent from a year earlier. The global business accounted for 35 percent of the entire quarterly revenue.

Of the 1.09-trillion-won revenue in the fourth quarter, the revenue from mobile services took up 64 percent while that from PC services accounted for 36 percent, according to the regulatory filing.

Meanwhile, LINE, the Internet giant’s subsidiary and mobile messenger firm, posted 37.5 billion yen (US$331 million) revenue in the fourth quarter, missing the average projection of more than 5 billion yen by market analysts.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)