Naver Corporation
The Naver Corporation (Korean: 네이버 주식회사) is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Seongnam that operates the search engine Naver. Naver established itself as an early pioneer in the use of user-generated content through the creation of the online Q&A platform Knowledge iN.
Native name
네이버 주식회사
Neibeo Jusikhoesa
Conglomerate
June 2, 1999
Green Factory, Bundang-gu, Seongnam, South Korea
Worldwide
₩ 1.3 trillion (2021)
₩ 16.4 trillion (2021)
₩ 33.6 trillion (2021)
4,103 (excl. subsidiaries, 2021)[2]
- A Holdings (50%)
- Camp Mobile
- Naver Labs
- Naver Webtoon
- NAVER Cloud
- Works Mobile
- Naver I&S
- Drama & Company (81.24%)
- Audiensori
- Company AI (91.30%)
- Works Mobile
- N Visio
- Naver Financial (81.16%)
- Poshmark
- SB Next Media Inovasion Fund (96.30%)
- TBT Global Growth Fund (89.91%)
- Webtoon Entertainment
- Wattpad
- Line Digital Frontier (66.67%)
- Naver Z Corp
- Net Mania (27.17%)
- Synapsoft (26.44%)
- ARO IN TECH (29.85%)
- Silicon Cube (41.89%)
- NSPACE (49.04%)
- One Store (27.53%)
- The Grim Ent (34.98%)
- Sanrio Corporation Inc. (Sanrio Korea Co., Ltd.) (44.99%) [3]
On August 1, 2013, Naver decided to split with Hangame, a corporation which it had grown together with as NHN Corporation for 13 years.[4] On October 1, 2013, the company adopted its current name, Naver Corporation, in order to reflect the change, thus restoring its pre-merger name. Hangame is now overseen by NHN Entertainment Corporation. Naver's current affiliates include Snow, Naver Labs, Naver Webtoon, NAVER Cloud, and Works Mobile. The company is currently cooperating with IT startups in order to evolve into a tech-based platform.
History[edit]
1999–2000: Establishment and launch of services[edit]
Naver Corporation was first established in June 1999 under the name of Naver Comm. Along with its search engine Naver, the company also launched a service for children named Junior Naver. In July 2000, Naver merged with Hangame Communications Inc. and several other companies including Oneque and Search Solutions.
In August 2000, Naver began its 'comprehensive search' service, which allows users to get a variety of results from a search query on a single page, organized by type (for example blogs, webpages, images, cafes, etc.). In September 2000, Naver established Hangame Japan.
2001–2012: Renaming and worldwide expansion[edit]
In 2001, NAVER Comm was renamed NHN Corporation (Next Human Network), although both divisions—Naver and Hangame—continued to operate under their original brand names. NHN also stood for (NAVER, Hangame, Network).
In 2002, NHN was registered on the KOSDAQ stock exchange, and launched the online Q&A service Naver Knowledge iN. In 2003, NHN merged all Japanese subsidiaries into NHN Japan. In 2005, Naver began the online donation service: Happy Bean. It also established its US branch under the name NHN USA. In 2007, it launched Naver Japan in order to pursue its search engine business in Japan. Meanwhile, NHN USA officially opened its American game service, ijji. However, it later sold away its 100% stake to Aeria Games.[5]
In 2008, NHN appeared on the Forbes Global 2000 list for the first time. That same year, NHN had the largest market capitalization among KOSDAQ-listed companies before being transferred to the KOSPI market in November. In 2009, Kim Sang-Hun of NHN and Jing-Wan Kim of Samsung were the only South Korean CEOs to appear on Forbes' Asia's Fab 50 list.
In 2010 NHN bought Livedoor, a Japanese ISP and blog platform. In the same year, the company moved into its new headquarters now known as the Green Factory.
In June 2011, NHN Japan launched Line, a messaging application that quickly soared in usage. In 2012, NHN announced that it planned to invest ₩1.5 billion (equivalent to ₩1.59 billion or US$1.41 million in 2017)[6] in developing ten social media games. In the same year, NHN Japan, Naver Japan and Livedoor were all merged into one company: NHN Japan. In August, NHN also established its Singapore branch NHN Singapore.
2013–2015: Splitting from NHN[edit]
In 2013, NHN launched its subsidiary companies Camp Mobile and Line Plus. NHN was split into Naver Corporation and NHN Entertainment, the latter being formerly known as Hangame. Similarly, NHN Japan separated into Line Corporation (web services) and Hangame Japan (game services). In June, Naver became the first web company in Korea to build and operate its own data center, Data Center GAK, which was built in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.[7]
In 2015, Naver launched Works Mobile for B2B collaboration businesses and merged with Entry Education Labs, which is a software education platform company. In the same year, global revenues began exceeding ₩1 trillion (equivalent to ₩1.03 trillion or US$910.54 million in 2017)[6] due to the growth of global affiliate services such as LINE.
2016–2020: Listing and further expansion[edit]
Naver's annual revenue for 2016 was 4.02 trillion won.[8] In 2016, Line Corporation was double listed on both the NYSE and the TSE. In August 2016, Naver spun off its app SNOW into a separate subsidiary company, Snow Corp.[9][10] Naver also began Project Flower, a project which aims to support small businesses and creators by cooperating with them on various projects. In September 2016, Naver and its affiliate Line announced that they would invest a combined 100 million euros (US$112 million) into K-Fund 1. K-Fund 1 is a European startup accelerator fund operated by Korelya Capital, which is an investment firm established by Fleur Pellerin, the Korean-born former French minister overseeing small and medium enterprises in the digital economy.[11]
In 2017, Naver established its subsidiary companies Snow, Naver Labs, and Naver Webtoon. Naver opened Space Green, which is a startup space inside Station F, a startup incubator space located in France. Naver also acquired Xerox Research Centre Europe, located in the French city Grenoble, rebranding it as Naver Labs Europe.[12]
2021–present: Global expansion[edit]
In mid-January 2021, Naver announced the acquisition of Wattpad for US$600 million.[13]
In March 2021 Line Corporation merged with Yahoo Japan, which has been operated by Z Holdings, a SoftBank Group subsidiary.[14] Under the new structure, Naver and SoftBank Corp., which is the wireless carrier unit of SoftBank Group, each hold 50 percent stakes in a new company named A Holdings Corp., which holds a majority stake in Z Holdings, which will operate Line and Yahoo Japan.[14][15][16] Upon integrating the two businesses and creating further platforms, the merged company aims to compete with the U.S. tech giants Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple and the Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent,[15] as well as the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.[14] The merger also gives Z Holdings three additional Asian markets where Line is popular: Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.[14]
In May 2021, Naver partnered with CJ Group’s CJ ENM to acquire Munpia Inc, the third largest web-novel platform in Korea.[17]
In October 2022, Naver agreed to buy social commerce marketplace Poshmark for a total enterprise value of US$1.2 billion,[18] which finalized in January 2023.[19]
Projects and foundations[edit]
Deview[edit]
Deview is a conference hosted by Naver since 2008, where developers from various countries share their technical knowledge and experience. Through several dozens of sessions, participants share in-depth knowledge in fields such as web, mobile, AI, big data, deep learning, robotics, and more. In 2017, 2,500 tickets went out in 15 seconds.[47]
Cultural Foundation[edit]
Naver Cultural Foundation, officially established in 2009. In 2010, the Naver Cultural Foundation launched a support program for indie musicians. In November of the same year, the foundation opened an online platform called 'Onstage' to introduce new up-and-coming indie bands.[48]
Connect Foundation[edit]
Connect Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization established by Naver in 2011. It promotes the dissemination of IT education as well as basic science and engineering education projects. Programs include public online classes, software training, math/science education, and design courses. In September 2017, Naver announced plans to donate 7 billion won (6.2 million dollars) to the Connect Foundation. As a result, Naver's total amount of donations to the Connect Foundation accumulated to 12 billion won (10.6 million dollars).[49]
D2 Startup Factory[edit]
D2 Startup Factory (D2SF) is an investment project that was launched in May 2015. As of 2017, it has invested in 16 start-ups with notable technical skills in areas such as AI, hardware, VR/AR and IoT. For example, in August 2017, it announced its investments in AI startups Furiosa AI, Deepixel, and CrowdWorks.[42] In September of the same year, D2SF held a Demo Day where it presented four start-ups that they were also investing in: Buzzmusiq (social visual playlist platform), Elice (online education platform for coders), Widevantage (producer of smart pens for iPad), and The Wave Talk (technology that automatically filters bacteria and drains contaminants from running water).[50] In June 2020, it invested in Vueron Technology which provides LiDAR perception software for autonomous driving and Advanced driver-assistance system(ADAS), and QSTAG providing a self-health monitoring platform.[51]
Project Flower[edit]
In 2016, Naver launched Project Flower, the company's long-term project to provide platform services that small enterprises and content creators can use.[52] As a business and content platform, Naver has 1.6 million local businesses, more than 400 professional webcomic authors, 150 web novel writers, 10,000 illustrators and 3,300 indie musicians. By providing more support for small businesses, the company said that it aims to attract more than 10,000 new small businesses to its platform every year and predicts that over 1,500 of them will earn more than 100 million won each in annual sales.[53] For content creators, Naver has expanded the application of its illustration content platform Grafolio to include not only illustrations but also photography, design, art and background music. It also holds original content exhibitions and events such as Creators' Day. Naver also diversifies the income structure of content creators by matching them with investors through crowdfunding and by connecting them to digital content marketplaces.[54]