Q3 Record-Breaking Performance Highkick Naver... "Now Global" (Comprehensive)

Naver recorded its highest-ever performance driven by growth across all business sectors including commerce, fintech, content, and cloud. The company also announced plans to tighten its grip on the global market by expanding Smart Store into Japan.

Growth Across All Business Divisions

On the 21st, Naver announced that its Q3 revenue reached 1.7273 trillion KRW, with an operating profit of 349.8 billion KRW. These figures represent year-on-year growth of 26.9% and 19.9%, respectively, marking an all-time high. Han Seong-sook, CEO of Naver, stated during the post-earnings conference call, "In Q3, Naver's competitiveness stood out based on building a mutually beneficial ecosystem that grows together with users, creators, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), brands, and partners, as well as proactive technology investments."

Looking at each business segment, search platform revenue, which includes advertising, reached 824.9 billion KRW, a 16.2% increase from the previous year. This growth was driven by the activation of the user-generated content (UGC) ecosystem, improvements in search technology, and the growth of performance-based advertising. With the introduction of performance-based advertising on PC, display revenue within the search platform grew by 33.2% year-on-year. Performance-based advertising charges advertisers based on the number of clicks by users. Naver is also officially launching 'Intent Search' this month, which reflects individual interests.

Commerce revenue rose 33.2% year-on-year to 380.3 billion KRW. Shopping Live, Brand Store, and Smart Store led the strong performance. The number of new sellers on Smart Store steadily increased, and Brand Store expanded to over 550 stores, resulting in transaction volume more than tripling compared to the previous year. Shopping Live saw a 13-fold increase in transaction volume year-on-year, driven by 'mega live' broadcasts with over one million views and brands generating quarterly sales of 10 billion KRW.

Fintech revenue reached 241.7 billion KRW, a 38.9% increase year-on-year, supported by the expansion of external partnerships. Naver Pay's payment volume grew 39% year-on-year to 9.8 trillion KRW. The company explained that the fintech ecosystem is being strengthened with the launch of new services such as the Naver Pay application and Naver Hyundai Card.

The content sector, including webtoons, also showed remarkable growth. Content revenue increased 60.2% year-on-year to 184.1 billion KRW. Webtoon revenue grew 79% year-on-year as global content continued to expand. Subsidiary Snow more than doubled its revenue year-on-year due to growth in its camera services and the metaverse platform 'Zepeto.' Naver Webtoon's monthly transaction volume surpassed 100 billion KRW, and 'Zepeto' exceeded 240 million cumulative users.

Cloud revenue increased 26.2% year-on-year to 96.2 billion KRW. Revenue growth continues as new customers are acquired and cloud migration in the public sector is led. Various Clova technologies such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) calls, and facial recognition are also being commercialized.

Hansung-sook, CEO of Naver

Smart Store Enters Japan... Targeting Global Markets

In addition to its domestic business, Naver is accelerating its global business expansion. It is especially expanding its global content business centered on webtoons and Snow. Naver Webtoon's monthly users in North America have exceeded 14 million. CEO Han said, "Recent global collaborations on webtoon intellectual property (IP), the launch of Smart Store in Japan, and other new global challenges are underway, and we plan to continue greater growth on the global stage."

The commerce business also officially began targeting the global market this year. In September, Naver started recruiting Smart Store sellers in Japan and launched the beta service of 'My Smart Store' the day before. It is linked with 'LINE,' Japan's national messenger. CEO Han emphasized, "We plan to replicate Smart Store's technology and SME ecosystem model in Japan. This will be the first foothold for Naver Commerce to enter the global market."

Meanwhile, Naver, which had been troubled by workplace harassment controversies, announced the establishment of a human rights dedicated organization directly under the CEO. CEO Han explained, "We plan to create a control tower that can systematically manage company-wide human rights risks."

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