'120,000 Daily' Who Writes Naver News Comments? ... 6 out of 10 Are 'Middle-aged Men'

120,000 Daily Users and 300,000 Average Comments
Sharp Increase in Comments on Chey Tae-won SK Divorce and Min Hee-jin Press Conference
Users Aged 40-60 Account for 80% of Comments Across Genders

Among the approximately 120,000 users who comment on Naver News daily, about 60% are men in their 40s to 60s. Users in their teens and twenties accounted for only about 2% of the commenters.

According to Naver Datalab on the 2nd, the number of users commenting on Naver News was recorded between 80,000 and 120,000 daily as of May. Considering that Naver's monthly active users (MAU) are around 40 million, only a very small portion of users actually leave comments.

Hands typing on a keyboard. [Photo by Yonhap News]

Commenters were concentrated in specific age groups and genders. Eight out of ten were in their 40s to 60s, with six men and two women among them. Among commenters in May, men in their 50s accounted for about 25%, ranking first. Men in their 40s ranked second with a proportion of 20.8% to 22.4%. Including men in their 60s, who made up about 17%, more than six out of ten commenters were men in their 40s to 60s.

The proportion of men in their 40s to 60s among commenters was about three times higher than that of women in the same age group. Women in their 40s to 60s accounted for about 20% of commenters. Women in their 40s and 50s each made up about 7%, with a slightly higher proportion of women in their 50s. Women in their 60s usually accounted for around 4%.

Overall, middle-aged commenters in their 40s to 60s made up about 80% of all commenters. The proportion of commenters aged 70 and above was about 4% in total (approximately 3% men and 1% women), so including them, about 85% of commenters were aged 40 or older.

Users in their 30s and younger were relatively more active internet users, but their commenting rates were low. Men in their 30s accounted for about 10%, a relatively high proportion, but the rates for other younger age groups were much lower compared to middle-aged users.

The proportion of women in their 30s was only about 2.5%, and users in their teens and twenties were in single digits. Men in their 20s accounted for about 2%, while women in their 20s were around 0.5%. Teenagers combined accounted for about 0.1%.

Naver analyzed that the low commenting rates among users in their teens to thirties reflect their content consumption patterns, which are mainly video-oriented on platforms like YouTube.

An IT industry insider pointed out, "As the number of young users has decreased in Naver's core news service, it seems necessary to have key video-related services."

Since the news service is important for attracting users and increasing their time spent on the platform, Naver is offering various services preferred by users in their teens to thirties, such as short-form videos and streaming.

Among these, the number of commenters varied depending on major issues and days of the week. On Sunday, May 12, the number of commenters was the lowest at 81,000, while on May 31, when major issues such as the second trial divorce ruling of SK Chairman Chey Tae-won and the second press conference of Min Hee-jin, CEO of Adore, took place, the number reached the highest at 122,000.

The number of comments posted daily ranged from a minimum of 185,000 to a maximum of 322,000, with each commenter posting an average of 2.2 to 2.5 comments per day. Among the comments posted, 7.5% to 8.8% were deleted by the commenters themselves.