The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at hzl.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. We raise our TP on YG Ent from W55,000 to W62,000. Blackpink’s position as a global force is strengthening thanks to rising awareness of the group in Western markets. The company is securing earnin
Naver announced on Dec. 16 that it would delist LINE, its subsidiary in Japan, and make an additional investment of 779.1 billion won in J.Hub, a fully-owned subsidiary in Japan.The investment is to repay borrowings. Earlier, J.Hub borrowed 2,247.9 billion won from Mizuho Bank and SMBC and Naver sto
The authors are analysts of KB Securities. They can be reached at cygun101@kbfg.com and scyoo@kbfg.com, respectively. -- Ed. HOLD, but raise TP 17.0% to KRW11,000 We maintain HOLD on Mirae Asset Daewoo, but revise up our TP 17.0%. We believe uncertainties will fade through 2021, as (1) management wo
Market research firm CEO Score announced on Dec. 9 that 217 out of the top 500 South Korean enterprises spent 40,156.1 billion won, up 2.03 percent from a year ago, on R&D for the first three quarters of this year.In that period, their sales totaled 1,178.6822 trillion won, down 4.85 percent from a
Naver ranked 33rd in "The Future 50" selected by Fortune, a global economic magazine. Among Korean companies, only Naver and Celltrion (49th) made the list.Regarding the selection of Naver, Fortune said, "Naver is the company that runs Korea's largest search engine and has recently achieved more
The author is an analyst of Shinhan Investment Corp. He can be reached at sejonghong@shinhan.com. -- Ed. 4Q20 consolidated OP forecast at KRW10.9bn (TB YoY)Studio Dragon is forecast to report consolidated sales of KRW134.5bn (+38.0% YoY) and operating profit of KRW10.9bn (positive swing YoY) for 4Q2
The so-called “Netflix Act,” which holds content providers (CPs) responsible for Internet service quality, will be applied to companies with average daily users of one million or more beginning from Dec. 10. As a result, large domestic and foreign CPs such as Naver, Kakao, Google, and Netflix will h
Hyundai Motor Co. has almost completed a recall of the Kona Electric Vehicle (EV), which has recently suffered a series of fires, but owners of the model are moving to file a class action lawsuit to demand compensation from the automaker.More than 90 percent of the 25,564 Kona EVs subject to the rec
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Covid-19 has facilitated the spread of Industry 4.0 throughout our daily lives. Today, many of us are truly living our lives online. Evolving from the O2O model, an online-oriented world is pre
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at jy.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. It is our opinion that the trend towards online shopping will sustain in 2021, noting: 1) online shopping categories and services have been greatly expanding this year amid Covid-19; 2) with most re
MORAI, Inc., a member company of Born2Global Centre and Sejong Technopark, has successfully secured US$1.8 million in Series A funding round. The round includes investment from Kakao Ventures and Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) as well as from an existing investor Naver D2SF (Naver D2 Startup Fa
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. He can be reached at joonsop.analyst@kbfg.com. -- Ed. 11st forges strategic alliance with Amazon — SK telecom’s subsidiary 11st forged a strategic alliance with Amazon (Korea Economic Daily, Nov. 14).— Amazon will acquire 0KRW50-300bn in 11st convertible pr
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jack.baek@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Key investment points for NICE I&T include rapid growth of both its online VAN business and subsidiary NICE Payments’ PG business. While earnings at the company’s offline VAN business (main busine
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at michelle.cho@nhqv.com. -- Ed. KG Inicis, one of Korea’s leading PG players, has adopted a selection and concentration strategy, seeking new sales growth opportunities. That said, we present a Hold rating on the firm, and r
Paradigm shiftInterest in the payment service sector is growing in line with higher non-cash and online payment amid Covid-19. While the spread of the virus is serving as a catalyst for online penetration in the payment market, we believe that a worldwide paradigm shift in the payment market has lon
The government and the ruling party are planning to revise the Commercial Act so that the exercise of voting rights by each major shareholder and affiliate person is limited to 3 percent of issued stocks during audit committee member appointment in a listed company. The Federation of Korean Industri
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at jy.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Having made efforts to diversify its service areas, Cafe24 is well positioned to benefit from the ongoing trend among online shopping malls preferring one-stop online shopping mall solutions. Also b
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at jy.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. K-online market growth to sustain in 2021We believe that Korea boasts the highest online retail penetration in the world, with various e-commerce platforms/channels emerging on the back of advanced
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at jy.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Emart’s shares to perform better going forwardThe large discount store market has been hit hard by growing online penetration, but earnings will likely differ by company, depending on the performanc
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at jy.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Online retail players to go publicThus far, no pure online retail players have gone public in Korea, as the market is fragmented and the majority of firms are in the red amid heated competition. Tha