NAVER: Steady profit growth, but shares near 52-week low after a 32.5% one-year drop

Thesis

The data supports a business that has grown revenue every year shown and kept operating margins in a 15% to 19% range. Trailing net income is ₩2.02T and free cash flow is ₩1.46T. The share price has not followed these results: it is down 12.6% in one month, 4.0% over three months and 32.5% over one year, and it sits ₩1,000 above the 52-week low and 40.6% below the 52-week high of ₩304,000. The data does not explain the fall. Return on equity of 7.4% is modest, and operating margin has slipped slightly from 18.4% in 2024 to 17.3% on a trailing basis. Investor flow, foreign ownership and short balance data are not available, so we cannot say who has been selling. Recent news about a union demanding management accountability, a strike at a unit called Naver Z and the Naver-Toss dispute shows possible operating and reputational pressure, but the data does not quantify any financial effect.

Business overview

NAVER is a KOSPI-listed internet company, founded on 1999-06-02 and listed on 2008-11-28, with 156,852,638 listed shares. Its market capitalisation is ₩28.3T and enterprise value is ₩25.8T. The CEO is listed as 최수연. Revenue rose from ₩6.8T in 2021 to ₩12.0T in 2025. The 2021 net income of ₩16.5T, with ROE of 70.0%, is far out of line with later years and looks like a one-off, though the data does not say what caused it. Among the listed peers, Kakao is the only one of similar scale at ₩14.2T in market cap. The other peers are much smaller, from ₩442.9B to ₩1.6T.

Model estimate of fair value

The valuation model has no estimate for this company yet (not enough data, or no positive value with the base case).

Report history

1. Oct 27, 2026Update noteNewsNAVER: Headline reports a ₩9T AI infrastructure contract and a Brookfield subsidiary link, but details are unconfirmed
2. Oct 13, 2026InitiationNAVER: Steady profit growth, but shares near 52-week low after a 32.5% one-year drop