Naver Corp. reported on April 30 that its first-quarter net profit fell 31.3 percent year-on-year to 291 billion won. The decline stemmed mainly from foreign exchange losses on dollar-denominated debt. Operating profit and sales rose 7.2 percent and 16.3 percent, respectively.
Naver Corp., South Korea's largest online portal operator, disclosed its first-quarter results ending March in a regulatory filing on April 30. Net profit dropped 31.3 percent to 291 billion won ($195.9 million) from 423.7 billion won a year earlier.
A company spokesperson attributed the decline to "increased translation losses on the company's dollar-denominated debt when converted into the local currency." Operating profit, however, climbed 7.2 percent to 541.8 billion won from 505.3 billion won, while sales surged 16.3 percent to 3.24 trillion won from 2.78 trillion won.
The results missed market expectations, with Yonhap Infomax's survey averaging a net profit estimate of 513.7 billion won. Sales in the mainstay platform business, covering search, advertising, and shopping, rose 14.7 percent to 1.8 trillion won. The global business grew 18.4 percent to 941.6 billion won, and the financial platform expanded 18.9 percent to 459.7 billion won.
Naver's CEO Choi Soo-yeon stated, "Naver is a unique platform that integrates search, commerce and payment infrastructure, the core competitive advantages of the AI agent era, into a single ecosystem." She added that the company will identify opportunities in global growth areas, such as sovereign AI, to accelerate overall revenue growth.
