Choi Soo-yeon, the representative of Naver, expressed aspirations for expanding the artificial intelligence (AI) business. Choi stated that AI will be applied across services such as search and commerce, and kept the possibility of collaboration with big tech open. The commerce business, which led Naver's growth last year, is also aiming for a double-digit growth rate.
◇ “Launch of ‘AI briefing’ to answer questions… possibility of collaboration with big tech”
In a conference call on the fourth quarter results held on the 7th, Choi stated, “This year will be an important time for Naver to fully implement its service-wide AI strategy,” and added, “We plan to effectively apply AI technology to various products such as search, main, commerce, and content.” In particular, Choi announced that the service ‘AI briefing,’ capable of providing various answers to user queries, will be launched in the first half of this year.
Choi also hinted at the possibility of collaboration with AI big tech. He said, “While there have not been any cases yet, it is, of course, possible to collaborate with various external large language models (LLM), and we are in discussions with various parties.”
Choi described DeepSeek as a positive example in the AI industry. He noted, “The emergence of DeepSeek itself is a positive case in that latecomers can relatively overcome leading firms at a lower expense,” adding, “(DeepSeek) is significant for Naver in that it can accelerate the pace of its AI business. It seems that we can consider adopting AI without a significant gap in technology with leading companies.”
The position was also conveyed that AI development will not negatively impact revenue. Kim Nam-sun, Naver’s Chief Financial Officer, noted, “Looking at the advertising monetization trend of Google, which expanded its AI search function Overview, it has confirmed to have raised it to a level similar to that of existing search ads.” He explained, “If Naver focuses on efficiency through infrastructure engineering and pushes for advertising monetization after launching ‘AI briefing,’ it may not negatively affect profits.”
◇ “Growth in Netflix membership transaction volume”
Choi noted that the number of new subscribers for the ‘Naver Plus Membership’ affiliated with Netflix increased last November. He explained, “The launch of the Plus Store in the fourth quarter and enhanced user benefits in the e-commerce sector had a positive impact,” adding, “The number of new Netflix subscribers has increased by 1.5 times, and we have identified actual consumption patterns.” He further stated, “The churn rate of new subscribers is also low, indicating a strong potential for long-term integration into the shopping ecosystem and the possibility of generating synergy effects that can increase the average order value.”
Choi also revealed that Poshmark, a subsidiary and U.S. online secondhand trading platform, achieved profitability in the fourth quarter last year. He stated, “Although growth has somewhat slowed due to rising advertising expenses and intensified e-commerce competition from the U.S. presidential election and year-end holidays, a solid trend continues,” and added, “Last year’s efforts for expense efficiency and growth in the advertising business have influenced achieving operating profit.”
Choi announced that he will focus on the e-commerce business, which is driving Naver's performance growth. He said, “This year, we plan to enhance personalization so that users can explore the various product databases owned by the store and to complement relatively weak delivery and membership,” and stated, “Through this, we aim to achieve double-digit growth that surpasses the market growth rate in transaction volume for smart stores.”