Naver announced on the 3rd that it recorded sales of 2.5261 trillion KRW and an operating profit of 439.3 billion KRW in the first quarter of this year.
Consolidated sales in the first quarter increased by 10.8% year-on-year due to balanced growth in major business sectors such as the search platform and commerce, but decreased by 0.4% compared to the previous quarter due to seasonal factors. Operating profit reached 439.3 billion KRW, showing a high profit margin of 17.4%, compared to 16.0% in the previous quarter, influenced by a temporary decrease in stock compensation costs due to stock price volatility.
Sales by business segment were ▲Search Platform 905.4 billion KRW ▲Commerce 703.4 billion KRW ▲Fintech 353.9 billion KRW ▲Content 446.3 billion KRW ▲Cloud 117.0 billion KRW.
The Search Platform segment increased by 6.3% year-on-year, supported by improvements in search advertising, strong performance-based advertising, and the discovery of new advertisers.
Commerce recorded 703.4 billion KRW, growing 16.1% year-on-year and 6.5% quarter-on-quarter, driven by new sales from delivery guarantees and brand solutions, growth of KREAM, and the inclusion of SODA.
Fintech showed 353.9 billion KRW, up 11.2% year-on-year but down 0.6% quarter-on-quarter. In the first quarter, Naver Pay’s payment amount reached 16.7 trillion KRW, growing 24.8% year-on-year and 2.2% quarter-on-quarter due to continuous expansion of the external ecosystem. Among this, offline payment amount increased by 174% year-on-year, supported by the expansion of QR and Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) payments.
Content sales increased by 8.5% year-on-year but decreased by 4.3% quarter-on-quarter to 446.3 billion KRW, affected by the exclusion of Naver Z’s consolidation. The global webtoon integrated transaction amount grew 9.1% year-on-year to 458.7 billion KRW. Notably, transaction volume in Japan measured in yen grew 24% year-on-year. Webtoons strengthened both growth and profitability by expanding EBITDA and achieving operating profit profitability.
Cloud recorded 117.0 billion KRW, growing 25.5% year-on-year, contributed by the full-scale realization of sales from generative AI solutions such as HyperCLOVA X.
Choi Soo-yeon, CEO of Naver, said, "Through the reorganization in early April, we are focusing on discovering new business opportunities by responding swiftly to market trends based on more segmented and specialized business organizations. We will provide differentiated experiences by utilizing Naver’s core technologies such as AI, data, and search, while creating long-term technological growth to strengthen Naver’s intrinsic competitiveness more rapidly."
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