Naver Posts Record Earnings on AI Push — Update

By Kwanwoo Jun

Naver reported record third-quarter earnings as the South Korean internet giant's continued artificial-intelligence push drove strong growth at its core platform and online-commerce segments.

Chief Executive Choi Soo-yeon said on an earnings call Wednesday that Naver's AI-based advancements across its services were expanding business opportunities and generating solid earnings growth.

Net profit jumped 39% from a year earlier to a record 734.70 billion won, equivalent to $508.9 million, for the July-September period, Naver said. Analysts had expected 474.02 billion won, according to a FactSet-compiled consensus.

Revenue increased 16% to 3.138 trillion won and operating profit rose 8.6% to 570.60 billion won, both also record highs, the company said.

The earnings beat comes as the internet-platform company continues to integrate AI tools into its businesses, helping boost user engagement, advertising revenue and other online business activities.

Revenue from its e-commerce segment and search-platform segment, which includes online advertising, climbed 36% and 6.3%, respectively, with average daily user numbers rising.

Operating costs increased 17% due to marketing and other business expenses, but the company maintained solid profit growth.

Choi said Wednesday that the company is in talks with more clients for new contracts to offer its cloud-computing services and develop customized large language models. Naver is pushing to establish a joint venture for a smart city project in Saudi Arabia next year, and is teaming up with Thai partners for a local LLM development, she said.

The company behind homegrown AI models known as HyperCLOVA X has also stepped up its AI efforts, unveiling its first reasoning-focused LLM product, HyperCLOVA X THINK, in June.

Naver said its investment related to the South Korean government's AI infrastructure expansion could top 1 trillion won next year, reaffirming a recent deal to purchase 60,000 graphics-processing units from Nvidia.

Nvidia last week struck deals with the Seoul government and big Korean tech companies, including Naver. Under the agreements, 260,000 of Nvidia's new AI chips will be deployed in data centers, smart factories, autonomous vehicles and robotics across the country.

Shares in Naver were recently 0.5% higher, outperforming the benchmark Kospi, which dropped more than 2%. The stock has risen about 35% this year.

Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 04, 2025 23:12 ET (04:12 GMT)