Naver has just held Naver Design Colloquium at November 29th. Facing the 20th anniversary of the search engine, this year’s colloquium theme is “A Set of Global Challenges.”
Indeed, in the opening of this third colloquium, Kim Seung-Eon, CEO of Naver Apollo CIC stated that, “the global market is not a choice for Naver, it’s the only way to survive.”
He explained that in this age of globalization and internet, there is no border in the digital business. Focusing on the domestic market might cause the company to lose its competitiveness, as it is currently the biggest company in the domestic market.
Bumping further into the global market is the only way for the South Korean company to be in par with global competitors. Right now, the global competitors are the world’s wealthiest companies, with a collection of technologies and talents.
Though it might sounds unfamiliar, Naver has been in the global market for a while
It’s not like Naver hasn’t step a foot outside its home country. In fact, the company has launched several features that are popular even outside of South Korea.
The first one is Naver Webtoon. It is the first feature of the company that made it to Japan and the United states. Now, it is available in different languages with local comic strips from many countries across the world.
The second and might be the biggest breakthrough is VLive. Naver VLive connects K-Pop stars with their fans through live streaming service. As the K-Pop community grows bigger world wide, VLive is getting more and more attention globally.
In South Korea itself, Naver is now the most-used search engine. Recently the company changed its policy of real time search rank. Naver will now apply AI technology to personalize real time search rank as well as the ads linked to them.
Meanwhile Naver recently signed big deal with Japanese SoftBank to merge Line with Yahoo Japan.
