Naver Corp., South Korea's largest online portal operator, said Friday its second-quarter net profit soared nearly 50 percent from a year ago due to a base effect.
Its net income totaled 497.4 billion won ($358.7 million) on a consolidated basis for the April-June period, up 49.8 percent from 332.1 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
The earnings exceeded market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 430.9 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Operating income for the quarter was 521.6 billion won, up 10.3 percent from a year ago, and sales rose 11.7 percent to 2.91 trillion won.
Naver attributed the sharp rise in net profit to a base effect, as last year's bottom line was impacted by the exclusion of its database unit, Naver Z Corp., from its consolidated balance sheet.
Naver's flagship search platform unit saw its sales grow 5.9 percent on-year to 1.04 trillion won, driven by its new search service powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Sales from the commerce unit jumped 19.8 percent on-year to 861.1 billion won, and revenue from the financial technology unit improved 11.7 percent to 411.7 billion won.
The content unit saw its revenue increase 12.8 percent to 474 billion won over the cited period, and sales from the enterprise business advanced 5.8 percent to 131.7 billion won.
"We will make greater efforts to enhance our platform's competitiveness through AI and secure new growth drivers for long-term growth and global expansion," Chief Executive Officer Choi Soo-yeon said. (Yonhap)
