SEONGNAM, South Korea, April 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NAVER Corp. (KRX: 035420) today pledged to reach 1 billion global users and KRW 15 trillion in revenue in five years at its 2022 NAVER Meetup. The leading Korean internet company hosted the event at '1784', the company's second headquarters building, and shared its future business strategy under the new leadership of CEO Choi Soo-yeon and CFO Kim Nam-sun.
"In the first ten years of our business, NAVER reached its 'Global 1.0' growth stage where we successfully launched LINE in global markets," said Ms. Choi. "We also experienced 'Global 2.0' where we established various well-performing vertical services worldwide, including SNOW, ZEPETO and WEBTOON. During this phase, we built a strong global business portfolio in partnership with numerous global players, completed the business integration with Z Holdings which operates LINE and Yahoo Japan in Japan, and acquired Wattpad in North America and a leading AI research institute in Europe, in addition to making investments in local startups."
Ms. Choi added, "We are now entering the Global 3.0 stage where NAVER's business portfolio, technological leadership and robust partnerships in Korea and overseas will create synergies to help us grow multiple times over. 'Team NAVER,' which is thriving through various businesses and partnerships, will work to establish a new global business ecosystem in Korea, Japan, North America and Europe to achieve our five-year goals of 1 billion global users and KRW 15 trillion (approx. USD 12 billion) in revenue."
CFO Kim Nam-sun also expressed confidence in NAVER's progress as a global company. "NAVER is already seeing global expansion in various fields, including search, commerce, entertainment, techfin, cloud and robotics," said Mr. Kim. "Considering our business competitiveness and capabilities, Team NAVER's corporate value has huge growth potential."
Team NAVER's unrivaled capability as a business creator platform to expand to Japan, North America and Europe markets
NAVER's Global 3.0 plan aims to further its strategy by creating multiple synergies through Team NAVER that will propel the company's global businesses forward. NAVER's unique business models will be optimized to fit each market, including Japan, North America and Europe, to accelerate growth through advanced technological competitiveness.
For Japan, NAVER plans to introduce its entire business portfolio to the market this year. The company intends to apply small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) business growth models — which have been piloted through Project Flower — to Z Holding's established SME business ecosystem in the market. Project Flower is NAVER's long-term initiative to nurture SMEs and creators using the company's innovative technologies. The company also plans to further expand its B2B businesses, including LINE WORKS, NAVER Cloud and CLOVA, as well as its core technologies that enable assorted services and platforms.
In North America, the Korean tech conglomerate will ramp up its content business on WEBTOON, leveraging the strongest creator compensation model in the world. Through Wattpad, a member of Team NAVER, the company will bolster its global IP value chain with the enthusiastic support of CEO Choi and CFO Kim to promote increased global collaboration through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Furthermore, Weverse, a global fan community platform where NAVER is collaborating with HYBE, will extend its reach to the U.S. market.
In addition, NAVER will strengthen the company's partnerships in European markets through its unsurpassed technological leadership combined with a unique ecological philosophy. NAVER LABS Europe — the world's top AI research and development (R&D) center, established in 2017 — is continuing its work on AI capabilities, such as machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing. This global AI technology competitiveness is the foundation for collaborations with leading internet companies in Europe. Additionally, NAVER plans to apply its insights and expertise in building SME ecosystems and content IP value chains to its e-commerce and content business verticals in Europe.
NAVER also plans to branch out its ZEPETO service globally and actively invest in various verticals, such as games, metaverse and virtual reality (VR).
Metaverse verticals to launch, added to ZEPETO and ARCVERSE
Ms. Choi also teased the launch of new metaverse verticals. "Team NAVER is already ahead in the metaverse space with ZEPETO and ARCVERSE. Online communities are the essence of the metaverse, and NAVER has been successfully operating community platforms since our business began," said Ms. Choi. She added with confidence, "We have been continuously launching and operating leading community platforms, such as NAVER Café, BAND and V LIVE, and have a deep and broad understanding of what communities need."
NAVER will introduce a metaverse vertical in sports that integrates with a community platform in the latter half of this year, with plans to further expand into the areas of webcomics, entertainment and education.
Revealing the world's first robot-friendly building, 1784, a tech convergence platform for R&D
NAVER revealed its second headquarters, 1784, to the media during the NAVER Meetup. Situated within the '178-4' area code, NAVER's second headquarters building is named after the year 1784, when the Industrial Revolution began.
As the world's first robot-friendly building, 1784 is a tech convergence platform where all of NAVER's future technologies, such as robotics, autonomous driving, AI and cloud, from various divisions and entities within Team NAVER will interact. 1784 embodies examples of future buildings and services where technological integration offers a new working environment where humans and robots can coexist. 1784 will be Team NAVER's new working space and serve as a giant test bed where NAVER's advanced technologies can be assessed and applied to drive future innovations.
"NAVER's competitiveness is created by Team NAVER, where the best and brightest challenge each other and grow together," said Ms. Choi. "NAVER's new headquarters, 1784, will be the massive platform where Team NAVER's experiments and capabilities come together. As the center of Team NAVER, I will support NAVER to take on new challenges by connecting and creating synergies between businesses."
Contact: Nahee Kim, nahee.kim@webershandwick.com
