Focusing on KakaoTalk, the messenger with the largest market share in Korea, it is generating profits in various areas such as commerce, mobility, pay, games, music, and content. Sales consisted of 52.8% in the platform sector and 47.2% in the content sector.Although it has been evaluated that its overseas business performance is sluggish compared to its competitor Naver, it is active in the overseas webtoon market with Beyond Korea as its key keyword.Beyond Mobile is also pursuing a strategy to prepare for the mobile era.Recently, in order to revitalize entertainment business, it is promoting large-scale agencies by belonging to OTT platforms and famous lovers.In addition, it is currently the most actively attracting attention, such as taxi service platforms and Internet banking. Naver Corp. is a South Korean company. Until 2013, it used the name NHN and changed its name to “Naver Co., Ltd.” after the division with NHN Entertainment (now NHN), which operates one game.Naver originated from Samsung SDS’ in-house venture Web Glider in 1997. At the time of the venture boom, Lee Hae-jin and other Samsung SDS employees were selected as in-house ventures through an in-house public offering and received support, and the first service was launched in January 1998Naver is close to a conglomerate-level conglomerate, but it was known only as a small and medium-sized company because it had little contact with daily life and Daum, which had already spread to Han-mail and Daum cafes.The number of users was small, so it was only fifth behind Daum, Yahoo, Lycos, and Empas. However, since 2001, the merger with Han Game has created a huge synergy effect, becoming a portal site that can compete with Yahoo and Daum around 2002, and has been registered on the KOSDAQ.Naver, which has capital power, is leaving Korea, which is nearing its growth limit, and is actively entering overseas businesses with one game at the forefront. In 2000, a game had already entered Japan, and in 2005, NHN USA was established and started a game business in the United States. However, Japan’s Livedoor, which was acquired in 2010, did not show very good results except that it was barely holding out.
Instead, Naver will continue to provide various contents in Korea, tying users together, and at the same time, its profitability will increase as it continues to release various advertising services. It also aggressively acquires many venture companies such as game developers and search engine developers, increases services, and expands into a trend. In Korea, the Internet soon became Naver, and as a platform operator, Naver gained the most power in the domestic Internet environment
Japan’s leading portal site. Softbank Group and Naver, Japan’s largest IT groups, are operating through joint ventures, and they maintain the highest share and exclusive status among Japanese portal sites despite Yahoo’s successive downsizing or withdrawal of its business.It operates various businesses that can be operated through the Internet such as portals, advertisements, Internet lines, and e-commerce through Yahoo! Japan. There are many affiliates operating under Yahoo Inc.As it is a large company, it is also a great company with sales of more than KRW 9 trillion and operating profit of nearly KRW 2 trillion based on consolidated settlement in March 2018. As of March 2019, the total number of employees was about 6,300. It is also listed on the first part of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Since then, the company name has been changed to Z Holdings.On October 1, 2019, Yahoo Japan changed its business system to a holding company. The holding company changed its name to Z Holdings, which Softbank owns 44% of the company, and removed its business unit to form Yahoo Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary. In short, Softbank (listed) – Z Holdings (listed) – Yahoo! Japan (listed) – Yahoo! Japan (listed) – has reorganized its governance structure as a subsidiary of Yahoo
Ted Park
ASIA JOURNAL
