The separate shopping application Naver Plus Store has surpassed a month since its launch. While it is still early and there are indications that the situation should be monitored, evaluations so far suggest that both app downloads and sales have shown steady growth. In particular, the app download metric, which can easily gauge early impact, is encouraging.
According to Naver on the 20th, Naver Plus Store downloads have exceeded 5 million across both the Android and Apple iOS versions. According to the mobile index by AiaWorks, the Naver Plus Store app recorded 2,841,603 downloads last month, securing the top spot for new downloads among all apps. On a weekly basis, it is currently maintaining second place (601,606 downloads) behind ChatGPT (952,715 downloads) for the period of 7th to 13th. Notably, it is gaining momentum by comfortably outpacing Temu (290,147 downloads), which has held the top spot among shopping apps for over a year.
It is estimated that the transaction volume has recorded double-digit growth in major institutional sectors compared to the same period last year. The sector with the largest transaction volume growth rate is digital and home appliances. It is reported that a significant contribution to increasing sales has come from the application of artificial intelligence (AI) shopping guides to a considerable number of products such as laptops, air conditioners, and TVs.
Since the launch of the shopping app, Naver has prominently featured AI technology, making hyper-personalized shopping experiences its main focus. The AI shopping guide learns my shopping patterns and, the more the app is used, the better it finds products that perfectly match the user. The company noted that the AI shopping guide has been effective in a short period for electronic products. Following digital, the highest transaction growth has been reported in food, daily necessities, automotive tools, infant and child products, pet supplies, and beauty.
A company official explained that personalized recommendations connected to the overall service—such as recommending good products for first weaning meals to users who have searched for weaning food using Naver Search and parenting cafes—led to natural purchasing decisions and increased sales.
Naver is accelerating its expansion in the online commerce business by recently partnering with Kurly to strengthen the fresh food sector, which has been considered a weakness. If Kurly joins Naver Plus Store within this year, it is projected to enhance the fresh food sector and aim for additional transaction growth by utilizing a dawn delivery system.