The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Over the past decade, earnings growth has driven up the share prices of major global Internet plays. Noting that Kakao’s earnings growth phase has just begun, we anticipate seeing a robust shar
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. NAVER’s ad and commerce businesses continue to serve as stable cash cows, while its new fintech and webtoon businesses have started to generate tangible results. The planned merger of LINE and
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. It only takes a moment of thought regarding the quantities of user time being spent on NAVER and Kakao to conclude that Internet players’ ongoing share price ‘flex’ is here to stay.Internet-ori
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. - According to media reports, NAVER, CJ Logistics, CJ ENM, and Studio Dragon have decided to exchange treasury shares. The companies explained that they are considering various strategic measur
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at junsup@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Mirae is likely to announce sound 3Q20 earnings. But, with positives already reflected in its valuations, we recommend keeping an eye on how uncertainties surrounding its earnings and litigation affe
CJ Group and NAVER are moving to strengthen their partnership. CJ Logistics and NAVER said on Oct. 14 that they are studying various measures to forge a strategic alliance in content and logistics and promote the growth of their related businesses. They added, however, that nothing has been determin
The author is an analyst of Shinhan Investment Corp. He can be reached at mj1224@shinhan.com. -- Ed. 3Q20 preview: OP improvement on removal of loss from LINENAVER announced in August that the business integration of LINE and Z Holdings has passed antitrust reviews and that LINE’s earnings will be e
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has announced the enactment of a new law for fair intermediate transaction on online platforms.The bill will be applied to every business acting as a product or service transaction intermediary between a consumer and an online platform user. The examples includ
Korea Exchange provides listed companies' public disclosures in English from Sept. 28 onwards.It has been pointed out that the South Korean stock market is limited in terms of data and information available to foreign investors. For example, in KOSPI, the number of English public disclosures has
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at ys.jung@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Amid ongoing parcel delivery volume growth, CJ Logistics’ global business earnings have been normalizing on a global economic recovery and consumption rebound in major markets. In addition, the firm
Cho Seung-rae, a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, proposed a bill to revise the Telecommunications Business Act on Sept. 8 to prevent app market operators such as Google from abusing their power.The bill was prompted by Google’s plan to collect 30 percent fees for applications sold
Social Value Connect 2020 (SOVAC 2020) kicked off on Sept. 1 to seek solutions to various social problems. Organized by SK Group, SOVAC is Korea's largest private festival related to social enterprises, companies that operate to solve social problems and promote social values.SOVAC 2020 will off
Industry tracker CEO Score recently analyzed the operating profits of 345 out of the top 500 companies in South Korea and announced on Sept. 9 that 13 remained in the black for 82 quarters in a row until the second quarter of this year.The 13 companies include KT&G, SK Telecom, Hyundai Mobis and Non
Kakao will invest 400 billion won to build a data center and make a foray into the cloud industry in earnest.Kakao plans to compete with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft not only in the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) sector, which is dominated by global players, but in the software as a service
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on Sept. 8 the enforcement decree of the Telecommunications Business Act, which was recently revised to prevent global content providers (CPs) such as Netflix from getting a free ride on the networks of domestic telecom companies.The enforcement decree, howe
Online platforms are becoming larger and larger and their clashes with existing businesses are intensifying. Under the circumstances, the government has yet to define those platforms as monopolistic and predominant market participants or an innovative form of industry based on the development of inf
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. He can be reached at drlee@kbfg.com. -- Ed. Big Hit Entertainment submits stock registration reportOn Sept 2, Big Hit Entertainment submitted its stock registration report, with new shares corresponding to 20.0% of total no. of shares issued. The IPO size (
Foreign investors posted a net selling of 1,630.6 billion won in KOSPI on Aug. 31. The record-high figure is because they withdrew their investment from a number of large-cap stocks. The previous high, 1,312.5 billion won, was recorded on March 9 with COVID-19 spreading rapidly.Specifically, on Aug.
Korea Exchange announced on Aug. 30 that the top 10 market cap stocks in KOSPI accounted for 44.78 percent and 43.77 percent of the aggregate value of the stock market this month and this year, respectively. For reference, the ratio was 33.51 percent in August last year.This lopsidedness is because
Kakao, the most popular smartphone messenger app among Koreans, and Naver, the biggest portal service in Korea, will tap into the Korean over the top (OTT) market. The two major IT platforms are aiming to bring a big change to the Korean OTT market, which is dominated by foreign platform Netflix, by