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SEOUL, Aug. 9 (Yonhap) -- Naver Corp., South Korea's leading online platform operator, said Friday its operating profit and sales hit a record high in the second quarter on solid growth of its key businesses.
Its operating profit reached a record 472.7 billion won (US$343.5 million) in the April-June period, up 26.8 percent from 372.7 billion won a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing.
It marked on-year growth for the sixth consecutive quarter since the first quarter of last year.
Its sales rose 8.4 percent on-year to 2.61 trillion won, and its net profit jumped 15.8 percent to 332.1 billion won.
The earnings beat market expectations. The average estimate of operating profit by analysts stood at 434.6 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Naver Corp.'s headquarters in Seongnam, just southeast of Seoul (Yonhap)
Naver attributed the strong bottom line to the strong overall performance of its major businesses in the second quarter.
Its flagship search platform division saw its sales increase 7.5 percent on-year to 978.4 billion won, thanks to commercials.
Sales of its commerce division advanced 13.6 percent to 719 billion won, led by the popularity of a new delivery solution and the growth of its social commerce platform, Kream.
The total volume of Naver's commerce transactions reached 12.3 trillion won for the three-month period ending in June, up 4.1 percent from a year ago.
Revenue from its fintech division also climbed 8.5 percent to 368.5 billion won on the expansion of Naver Pay, its mobile payment service.
The content division reported 420 billion won in sales for the second quarter, nearly unchanged from a year ago.
In particular, global sales of its flagship webtoon service rose 11.1 percent for the quarter, thanks to rising demand in Japan.
The cloud division saw its revenue jump 19.2 percent to 124.6 billion won.
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