Commerce Up 36%, Platform Advertising Up 6.7%
Naver has set a new record for its best-ever earnings, as its commerce and fintech business divisions posted strong growth on the back of its competitiveness in artificial intelligence (AI).
Naver announced on the 6th that its revenue for last year came to 12.035 trillion won and operating profit to 2.2081 trillion won, up 12.1% and 11.6%, respectively, from a year earlier. While Coupang faltered in the wake of a personal data leak incident, the commerce business showed explosive growth, and major business divisions including the overall platform advertising and fintech drove the solid performance.
Operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year was 610.6 billion won, up 12.7% year-on-year, while revenue was 3.1951 trillion won, an increase of 10.7% from the same period a year earlier.
By business division, fourth-quarter revenue was as follows: search platform 1.0596 trillion won, commerce 1.0540 trillion won, fintech 453.1 billion won, content 456.7 billion won, and cloud 171.8 billion won.
Advertising across the entire Naver platform grew 6.7% year-on-year, driven by improved advertising efficiency through AI-based ad inventory optimization and the advancement of personalized services such as feeds and clips.
In particular, commerce recorded 1.0540 trillion won, up 36% year-on-year, supported by steady growth in Smart Store and the global C2C (consumer-to-consumer) business.
Fintech revenue rose 13% year-on-year to 453.1 billion won, boosted by the growth of Smart Store and the expansion of the external ecosystem. The total payment amount in the fourth quarter was 23 trillion won, up 19% from the same period a year earlier.
Content revenue was 456.7 billion won, down 2.3% year-on-year. Enterprise revenue declined 3.2% from a year earlier.
Annual revenue for the search platform was 4.1689 trillion won, up 5.6% from the previous year.
Annual revenue for commerce came to 3.6884 trillion won, up 26.2% year-on-year, leading overall growth. The annual transaction volume of Smart Store also increased 10% from a year earlier. Naver plans to strengthen its commerce competitiveness by expanding its N Delivery infrastructure, further advancing AI personalization, and enhancing membership benefits.
Annual revenue for fintech was 1.6907 trillion won, up 12.1% from the previous year, while annual content revenue was 1.8992 trillion won, a 5.7% year-on-year increase.
Annual revenue for enterprise was 587.8 billion won, up 4.3% from a year earlier, driven by global revenue from new GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offerings, the Saudi super app, and digital twin projects.
Naver CEO Choi Suyeon said, "This year, we will create new value and monetization opportunities through shopping agents and the AI tab, while continuing strategic investments focused on content, AI infrastructure, and N Delivery," adding, "We will concentrate on securing mid- to long-term growth engines in our key business divisions and accelerating revenue growth."
Naver also unveiled a new three-year (fiscal years 2025 to 2027) shareholder return plan. Over the next three years, it plans to return 25% to 35% of the average consolidated free cash flow (FCF) of the previous two years through share repurchases followed by cancellation or through cash dividends.
Meanwhile, starting from the first quarter of this year, Naver will change its revenue breakdown to reflect its core businesses and new business opportunities. The new categories will be Naver Platform (advertising, services), Financial Platform, and Global Challenge (C2C, content, enterprise).
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