Naver posted double-digit third-quarter revenue growth on the back of growth in commerce, financial and global C2C businesses. Operating profit fell from a year earlier as investment increased to secure AI competitiveness.

Naver said on Wednesday it posted consolidated third-quarter revenue of 34.7 trillion won and operating profit of 451.3 billion won.

Revenue rose 10.7 percent from a year earlier, while operating profit fell 20.9 percent. From the previous quarter, revenue gained 2.5 percent and operating profit fell 13.3 percent.

Operating margin was 13 percent, down 5.2 percentage points from a year earlier and down 2.4 percentage points from the previous quarter. Naver said increased investment in infrastructure, content and offline data to secure AI competitiveness affected the decline in operating profit.

Net profit was 402.5 billion won, down 45.2 percent from a year earlier and down 42.9 percent from the previous quarter.

Naver platform up 7.3 percent; financial also rises 14.1 percent

Revenue by business was tallied at 19.5 trillion won for the Naver platform, 4.9 trillion won for the financial platform and 10.4 trillion won for global initiative.

Naver platform revenue rose 7.3 percent from a year earlier and 2.4 percent from the previous quarter.

Within that, advertising revenue was 14.7 trillion won, up 5.5 percent from a year earlier. Service revenue rose 13.1 percent to 4.7 trillion won, helped by an increase in users of the Naver Plus store and membership and strengthened N Delivery.

Naver will also set up a logistics-specialised unit to strengthen its commerce business. It plans to gradually expand delivery infrastructure centred on leased logistics centres.

Financial platform revenue was 4.9 trillion won, up 14.1 percent from a year earlier and 3.6 percent from the previous quarter.

Third-quarter Naver Pay (Npay) payment volume was 26.2 trillion won, up 15.6 percent from a year earlier. External payment volume rose 21.8 percent over the same period.

Naver Financial aims to become South Korea's top operator by active terminals by the first half of next year by expanding distribution of the offline integrated terminal, Npay Connect.

Global initiative revenue 10.4 trillion won; growth in C2C and enterprise

Revenue in the global initiative area was 10.4 trillion won, up 15.9 percent from a year earlier and up 2 percent from the previous quarter.

Global C2C revenue rose 47.8 percent from a year earlier to 3.7 trillion won, helped by the impact of the Wallapop consolidation and growth in transactions at Poshmark and Soda.

Enterprise revenue also rose 33.0 percent from a year earlier to 1.9 trillion won, influenced by projects such as a digital twin business in Saudi Arabia.

Content revenue, however, fell 5.1 percent from a year earlier to 4.7 trillion won.

AI factory revenue to be reflected from next year; secures supply contracts worth 2 trillion won

Naver plans to reflect in its results from the first half of next year revenue from an AI factory project it is pursuing with Brookfield and Nvidia.

The company said it secured initial customers by signing a computing service supply contract worth about 2 trillion won related to the AI factory project. It plans to expand medium- and long-term contracts with large customers and broaden its customer base to global AI companies.

It will also expand AI services. Naver plans to launch a personalised AI agent application within the year, following AI Briefing and AI Tab.

The AI agent is being developed to connect user actions such as purchases and visits, going beyond information search and recommendations.

Naver CEO Soo-yeon Choi (최수연) said, "We secured initial customers by signing a computing service supply contract worth about 2 trillion won related to the AI factory project." She said, "We plan to secure stability and profitability together by pursuing medium- and long-term contracts with large customers while expanding our customer base to global AI companies with high growth potential."