The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at jy.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Retail franchise operators are to benefit from a Covid-19-induced rise in structural unemployment. DFS players’ earnings are to be buoyed by eased cost burdens (on rent cuts for IIA DFS operators) a
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Having solidified their competitiveness during the Covid-19 pandemic, Internet firms are to continue prevailing even after the outbreak comes to an end. We predict that NAVER’s competitiveness in
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. While the ad market has performed sluggishly since the outbreak of Covid-19, the e-commerce, content, fintech, and digital ad markets have expanded strongly, with related plays maintaining solid
Business groups with total assets of at least five trillion won and subject to the duty of public disclosure can no longer benefit from incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Specifically, the measure becomes effective on June 11 and its targets include OCI, E-Land, Naver, Celltri
The authors are analysts of Shinhan Investment Corp. They can be reached at jwsung79@shinhan.com. -- Ed. 1) Travel: Domestic travel over overseas in 2020A two-week quarantine is mandatory for all people arriving from overseas due to COVID-19. Traveling abroad is almost impossible for now. Unless a v
The author is an analyst of Shinhan Investment Corp. He can be reached at mj1224@shinhan.com. -- Ed. NAVER launched NAVER Plus Membership on June 1 and plans to introduce NAVER Bankbook within the month. The new services are expected to strengthen the lock-in effect in commerce based on the NAVER Pa
Global online travel agencies (OTAs), including Booking.Com, Agoda, Expedia and Trip.Com, have submitted to the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) corrective measures for the abuse of their superior position in the market against Korean lodging companies.These companies were investigated by the FTC f
Korean ICT companies are forging “artificial intelligence (AI) alliances” to challenge global companies such as Google and Apple in the AI market.KT, LG Electronics, and LG Uplus are pushing for an MOU on AI collaboration and joint AI technology development. The three companies are considering shari
The authors are analysts of NH Investment & Securities. They can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com and hzl.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. In the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic, consumption patterns have changed drastically towards non-face-to-face platforms. And, with people having become more familiar
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at ys.jung@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Excluding the effects of changes in accounting standards, CJ Logistics’ 1Q20 earnings satisfied consensus. Expectations for profit improvement remain valid, thanks to mid/long-term sales growth and
Software companies’ stock prices are rising over and over. During the May 14 trading session, Kakao’s market cap exceeded that of Hyundai Motor Co. for the first time to rank ninth.Specifically, the stock price of Kakao rose 3.93 percent to 225,000 won per share and its market cap reached 19,590.7 b
Korea Exchange announced on May 7 that Hyundai Motors’ market cap ranking has fallen from third (26.6 trillion won) to ninth (19.7 trillion won) since Nov. 13 last year. This is atypical in that the company was third-largest in market cap in most cases from the early 2010s to mid-2019. Its stock pri
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at ys.jung@nhqv.com. -- Ed. While uncertainties are likely to linger at CJ Logistics’ global business in 2Q20, such uncertainties are short-term risk factors. We expect the firm’s mid/long-term sales growth to remain steady on
Lawmakers will deliberate bills regarding the controversial free-riding of Korean telecom networks by global IT giants such as Google, Netflix, and Facebook.The legislative subcommittee of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee will convene on May 6 to discus
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. While the ad market downturn due to Covid-19 is inevitably to weigh upon NAVER’s earnings in 1H20, the firm’s efforts to turn crisis into opportunity should bear meaningful results from 2H20.Taki
JobKorea recently looked into last year’s business reports of the top 30 market cap companies and said on April 7 that the average age of their executives, 95.6 percent of whom are male, is 53 and 24.1 percent of the executives studied abroad.Specifically, those in their 50s account for 75.7 percent
YouTube, Netflix, Instagram and Facebook are dominating the online video service market of South Korea, in which Naver is the only local company among the top five.KT Group’s digital media lab Nasmedia recently released the result of this year’s Netizen Profile Research. In the survey that covered 2
The author is an analyst of Shinhan Investment Corp. She can be reached at mj1224@shinhan.com. -- Ed. Positive on COVID-19-sparked changes in consumption habitsFor the internet sector, we focus more on the positive impact of COVID-19 in terms of changing consumer habits towards “untact” (a portmante
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. The economic downturn due to Covid-19 is negatively influencing ad market conditions. Ad sales growth at Internet firms started to slow from February, which is likely to weigh on their short-term
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) dropped 4.19 percent to close at 1,954.77 points on March 9, showing a decline of over 4 percent for the first time since Oct. 11, 2018.On March 9 alone, the aggregate value of the stock market plunged by 57.5 trillion won and that of the Korea Securitie