Naver announced on May 8 that it posted a consolidated operating profit of 189.8 billion won for the first quarter of this year, up 50.5 percent year on year. Sales rose 23.9 percent to 638 billion won.
Line played a key role in boosting Naver’s overall sales. Overseas sales jumped 92.6 percent to 181.3 billion won, with its share in Naver’s total sales rising to 28 percent from 18 percent a year ago.
A Naver official said, “Line has secured more than 420 million global users. New subscribers are rising in Asia, South America, and India.”
Naver is focusing on developing Line into a global mobile platform. On May 1, it launched a new service for Line, enabling the users in four countries—Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia—to directly make and sell their own stickers through Line. Sticker is one of Line’s new income sources which account for 15 percent in Line’s total sales.
