[Click eStock] "Naver Acquires Line Manga... Accelerates Global Webtoon Market Expansion"

Creating Synergy Through Line Manga Content Utilization
Webtoon Transaction Volume Grows, Increasing Naver's Valuation

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Naver (NAVER) has acquired Line's webtoon subsidiary in Japan. Analysts say this will boost the value of Naver Webtoon and accelerate its global expansion.

On the 28th, Korea Investment & Securities maintained a 'Buy' rating on Naver and raised the target price by 28.6% to 270,000 KRW. The previous day's closing price was 228,500 KRW. This is based on the judgment that the merger of Naver Webtoon and Line Manga will create greater synergy.

The day before, Line announced that its subsidiary Line Manga would be acquired by Naver Webtoon. Although Naver Webtoon already held a 30% stake in Line Manga, this acquisition means that the 70% stake held by Line will also belong to Naver Webtoon.

Accordingly, since Line Manga's GMV will now be included in Naver Webtoon's GMV, it is expected that Naver's valuation will increase. Ho-yoon Jung, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, explained, "In the long term, Naver Webtoon, which is pursuing global expansion, will be able to utilize Line Manga's content, creating even greater synergy."

The stock price is also expected to continue its upward trend for the time being. Due to the impact of COVID-19, the concept of 'untact' (contactless) has emerged as a key topic, and Naver's stock price has risen about 35% since the beginning of the year. Recently, it has shown a particularly strong upward trend, reaching a new high of 246,000 KRW on the 26th.

Researcher Jung said, "The social change called 'untact' is expected to bring structural and long-term benefits to internet companies, which is raising the value of internet companies worldwide to unprecedented levels. Google's price-to-earnings ratio (PER) at the end of this year is about 28.4 times. Considering that Google has typically been valued at around 20 times, it would be better to enjoy this upward trend a bit more rather than feeling burdened by the current stock prices of domestic internet companies."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.