Naver First-Quarter Net Profit Fell Sharply on Weak Online Ad Sales

Naver First-Quarter Net Profit Fell Sharply on Weak Online Ad Sales

Naver’s first-quarter net profit fell 71% from a year earlier, on weak online advertising sales amid an economic slowdown, missing street views.

Net profit for the quarter ended March was 43.70 billion won ($33.2 million) compared with net profit of KRW151.40 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, the South Korean internet platform giant said Monday.

That was well below a FactSet-compiled consensus forecast for a net profit of KRW219.49 billion for the quarter.

Revenue rose 24% from a year earlier to KRW2.280 trillion for the quarter, as operating profit gained 9.5% to KRW330.50 billion.

Naver, however, said its earnings were weighed by sluggish advertising markets, with online display ads declining 13% on year in the quarter.

Losses over foreign exchanges and equity investments also hurt its earnings, it said.

The company said its U.S.-based online fashion reseller affiliate, Poshmark, posted an operating profit for the quarter after its acquisition was completed in January.

Naver said it would release its own generative artificial-intelligence search engine early this summer.

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