SEOUL — Naver, South Korea’s biggest internet portal operator, booked an extraordinary profit of 14.9 trillion won ($13.3 billion) from the merger of former chat subsidiary Line with Yahoo Japan’s parent, the company said Thursday.
The one-time windfall boosted Naver’s net profit to 15.3 trillion won for the first quarter, according to Thursday’s earnings statement, up from 134.9 billion won a year earlier.
Line completed in March its long-awaited integration with Z Holdings, the owner of Yahoo Japan web portal backed by SoftBank Group. As the result of the deal, Line was removed from Naver’s consolidated accounting.
The one-time profit stems from accounting gains reflecting the shares in the newly merged company as the Line assets came off the books.
Quarterly revenue meanwhile rose 30% on the year to 1.49 trillion won, with growth across all of Naver’s business segments.
The search engine segment, which is responsible for half of Naver’s top-line number, boosted sales by 17%. The segment responsible for webtoons and other content increased 40% and the data center business soared 71%.
Sales from the e-commerce arm jumped by 40%. Fintech, which includes payment services, climbed 52%. The settlement turnover from the Naver Pay platform increased 56% to 8.4 trillion won.
Operating profit, however, dipped 1% to 288.8 billion won. Labor costs surged 32% to 374.3 billion won compared with the year-earlier quarter. Marketing costs spiked as well.
“Securing the best talent is critical in accelerating business growth around the globe, so we are devising a progressive salary structure,” said Naver President Han Seong-sook.
