Naver Cloud Aims for 3rd Place in Asia with Korea's Only Technology

-IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, Hybrid Cloud and other customized customer services
-New product launches including Cloud Data Box, Data Forest, RPA
-Investing 80% of revenue in technology, building eco-friendly data center 'Gak Sejong', tripling workforce size

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Naver Cloud has set a goal to become a 'Top 3' operator in the Asia-Pacific and Japan markets based on the only domestically internalized core technology. To achieve this, it plans to invest 80% of its annual sales in technology and personnel by 2023.

Naver Cloud revealed this plan at a meet-up event held online on the 16th. Since officially launching its cloud business in 2017, Naver Cloud has grown to a level where its product and technology competitiveness can rival global operators within four years. Starting with 22 products at the beginning of the business, Naver Cloud has expanded its product portfolio more than eightfold, now offering 189 product lineups across 18 categories.

Sales have also continuously grown, reaching 273.7 billion KRW last year, marking a 41% increase compared to the previous year. This figure significantly surpasses the growth rates of the global (29.3%) and domestic (18.7%) public cloud markets. This year, it is expected to achieve sales of 400 billion KRW, growing 46% annually.

Kim Tae-chang, Head of Naver Cloud Business, explained, "The core value of Naver Cloud is to provide customers with solutions that integrate Naver's diverse technologies and business know-how accumulated by directly developing and operating almost all internet services such as search, shopping, messenger, video, and games." He added, "Through this, we can support customers in any industry to secure top-level IT capabilities."

As demand from companies seeking to utilize Naver's advanced technology and know-how increases, Naver Cloud currently has over 50,000 corporate customers (based on corporate accounts), and 55% of the top 100 domestic companies use Naver Cloud.

Naver Cloud is the only domestic provider that owns service infrastructure (IaaS), service platform (PaaS), service software (SaaS), and hybrid cloud based on self-developed core technology, and it is characterized by the ability to directly develop and provide products in the form customers desire.

Jang Beom-sik, PaaS Service Development Leader at Naver Cloud, said, "As cloud adoption becomes widespread, the completeness of PaaS and the establishment of a true cloud-native environment have become new criteria for choosing cloud providers. Among domestic providers, Naver Cloud is the only one that can directly develop and offer various PaaS solutions based on core technology."

Naver Cloud plans to focus on development and investment in PaaS to respond to increasing customer demand for platform services. Recently, it has been strengthening its PaaS portfolio by focusing more on data analysis platforms utilizing Naver's data. New products such as ‘Cloud Data Box,’ which provides data and analysis environments to discover business insights, and ‘Data Forest,’ a large-scale analysis platform capable of analyzing from big data to machine learning, are also scheduled for release.

Naver Cloud will continue large-scale investments, including building the eco-friendly data center ‘Gak Sejong’ to secure world-class hyperscale data centers. Leader Jang said, "We will invest 80% of annual sales in technology and personnel by 2023 to secure new growth engines. Based on this, we will firmly establish ourselves as a top 2 player in the domestic market and a top 3 operator in Japan and Southeast Asia, expanding our footprint as a global powerhouse."