Naver Dominates Even in Regulation... Investor Sentiment Heats Up with Collaborations Including Big Hit

Closed 4% Up Despite Previous Day's Decline... Hit New Highs
Content Ecosystem Expansion Through Collaboration with BigHit and Acquisition of Web Novel Platform 'Wattpad'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Despite the sharp market decline the previous day, Naver (NAVER) showed a distinctive upward trend. Analysts attribute this to solid earnings and strengthened content competitiveness through partnerships with BTS's agency, which stimulated investor sentiment.

On the 29th, Naver opened at 362,000 KRW, up 1.97% from the previous day. This continued the upward trend from the day before, when Naver closed at 355,000 KRW, a 3.54% increase from the previous trading day. While the KOSPI fell 1.71% and the KOSDAQ dropped 2.50% in a declining market, Naver steadily rose. During the trading session, it reached a new high of 366,000 KRW, up 7.17% from the previous trading day. This contrasts with its exclusion from the rally at the end of last year. In December last year, Naver's stock price rose only 2.45%, but it has surged 23.55% this year, significantly outperforming the KOSPI's 4.56% increase.

Aggressive investments such as mergers and acquisitions and partnerships acted as positive factors. In October last year, Naver agreed to a 600 billion KRW equity swap with CJ Group, aiming to collaborate with CJ ENM and Studio Dragon in content and CJ Logistics in logistics. Investments have continued this year as well. On the 19th, Naver announced the acquisition of Wattpad, the world's number one web novel platform with 90 million users, for 600 million USD (approximately 668.7 billion KRW). The day before, it announced the creation of a fan community platform together with BigHit Entertainment. The plan is to combine Naver's content distribution, live streaming, and platform technology with BigHit's proven content business capabilities through BTS to generate a synergistic effect.

Strong earnings also reassured investors. In the fourth quarter of last year, Naver posted consolidated sales of 1.5126 trillion KRW and operating profit of 323.8 billion KRW, marking the highest quarterly performance ever. Yoon Eul-jung, a researcher at Shin Young Securities, said, "Advertising and commerce sectors are performing steadily, and fintech (finance + technology) and cloud are also experiencing high growth," adding, "As platform influence grows centered on content, a positive stock price trend is expected."

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