NAVER announced that it will strengthen its investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Moreover, in order to compete with YouTube, NAVER also announced that it will concentrate in securing video contents.
At NAVER’s general shareholders meeting held at the Green Factory Connect Hall in Sungnam City on Friday, CEO Han Sung-suk said, “We will focus more on video investment,” further adding, “We will also continue to strengthen our search engine business and commerce as well as strengthen our investment on new business projects.”
“We have spent a lot of money on AI and content in the previous year, but we expect to invest a lot more in Europe and the AI sector this year as well as secure a AI workforce,” said Han Sung-suk, CEO of NAVER.
On the same day, shareholders at the company asked about the impact on market sales of search advertisements and how to respond to the enlarged video market as the number of YouTube users have recently increased. CEO Han said, “The sales of search ads are not actually moving to YouTube, but it is true that teenagers are using YouTube with patterns similar to that of a search engine. We are also focusing on securing NAVER Junior Video clips, music videos and knowledge related ‘How to’ clips.”
On Naver’s new business plan to list its subsidiaries this year, CEO Han said, “We plan to invest in new areas such as AI and search service in Japan. If we do not do these new things, we do not know what we will do in three years.”
At the general shareholders’ meeting, vice president Choi said, “The advantage of NAVER is that it has had various experiences over the past 20 years; these include development platforms, service development, operations, and business planning. Furthermore, we will do our best to increase contributions to the growth and development of NAVER together with our outstanding directors.”
“In order to become a true technology platform even in a rapidly changing internet industry environment, we will actively promote start-ups, content-related investments, business alliances, and partnership expansions in domestic and overseas markets,” said NAVER CEO Ms. Han.
