The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Healthy sales growth continues at NAVER, and long-term earnings expansion is expected thanks to investment in new businesses. Having fallen along with the broader market downturn due to concerns
LG Energy Solution was listed on KOSPI on Jan. 27. Its initial stock price did not reach twice the IPO price. Its closing price fell more than 15 percent from the initial price.LG Energy Solution’s public offering price stood at 300,000 won. The subscription competition rate at institutional investo
Naver has recruited young scholars, including a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to upgrade its AI-powered search services.The company announced on Jan. 24 that it has recently recruited Professor Kim Yoon-hyung of MIT and Professor Karl Stratos of Rutgers University as
Naver Webtoon announced on Jan. 18 that its webtoon and web novel “Seven Fates: Chakho,” which was created through collaboration with the global boy band BTS, recorded 15 million cumulative views within two days of its global release. It is a new record among the company's works.Thanks to the re
Apple Korea’s sales amounted to approximately seven trillion won and its corporate tax payment was 31.3 billion won last year, when it sent 873 billion won, more than 700 percent of its net profit, to its U.S. parent company. For reference, Google Korea’s sales were 220.1 billion won last year, the
The Korea Communications Commission announced on Jan. 11 that Apple Korea submitted a plan on Jan. 7 for its compliance with the Telecommunications Business Act, which is to prohibit app market operators from forcing a certain way of payment in relation to developers.According to the plan, Apple Kor
The authors are analysts of Shinhan Investment Corp. They can be reached at sh.kim@shinhan.com and mintz95@shinhan.com, respectively. -- Ed. Banks with high share of variable-rate loans show stronger fundamentals during rate hike cyclesBanks with a relatively large portion of variable-rate loans ten
Nexon, one of South Korea's leading game publishers, will become the second-largest shareholder of Hollywood film production company AGBO, an independent film and television production company best known for its work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most notably "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Av
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Given its continuing investment and healthy performance across a range of new businesses (eg, metaverse, webtoon, and content), NAVER should enjoy robust earnings growth over the mid/long term. I
Naver and Kakao are competing with each other in the North American entertainment content market, the largest of its kind in the world.Kakao Entertainment recently acquired Wuxiaworld for 45 billion won via Radish Media. The annual sales of the English web novel service have grown over 40 percent fo
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at mj27@nhqv.com. -- Ed. On the back of increasing high-margin sales both from Sulwhasoo and through e-commerce channels, AmorePacific’s China subsidiary should enjoy sales growth and profitability improvement moving ahead.Po
The Korea Exchange announced on Dec. 9 that a KRX-CSI joint index would be announced on Dec. 20.The Korea Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange signed a memorandum of understanding in May for further cooperation in capital markets. The new index is a part of the MOU and will cover South Korean an
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on Dec. 7 that it prepared a guideline regarding the implementation of the revised Telecommunications Business Act. The revised act became effective on Dec. 10, 2020 and is applied to six large value added common carriers (VACCs) so that their services provi
Platform companies are continuing to object to the Bill on the Fairness of Online Platform Intermediary Transactions, which was tabled in January this year. The companies have claimed that the bill is yet another regulation, and the Korea Fair Trade Commission has claimed that the bill is something
Enterprise research institute Leaders Index recently analyzed 197 listed subsidiaries of 30 business groups and announced on Dec. 6 that they had 7,438 non-outside director executives at the end of the third quarter of this year, the executives include 3,484 born in 1969 or later, and the ratio incr
The Federation of Korean Industries said in its report on Dec. 6 that the top 30 business groups in South Korea are planning to make an environmental investment of 153.2 trillion won for nine years to come with regard to their ESG management.The investment includes multiple global M&A deals. For exa
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on Nov. 20 that the number of South Korean startups whose annual sales exceed 100 billion won increased from 617 to 633 last year and the 633 include 62 new entries.In addition, the 633 include 17 with annual sales of at least one trillion won and the 17 i
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at jaemin.ahn@nhqv.com. -- Ed. The Internet world is ever rapidly changing. New concepts such as the metaverse, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), blockchain, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have surfaced as major th
The Korea Fair Trade Commission announced on Nov. 16 that the ratio of internal transactions is higher in unlisted subsidiaries than in listed subsidiaries of major business groups and higher in owner-led groups than in ownerless groups. It also said that the ratio tends to be proportional to the ow
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at hzl.lee@nhqv.com. -- Ed. During its 2021 HYBE Corporate Briefing held on Nov 4, HYBE announced its: 1) entry into the NFT market; 2) consolidation of fan community platforms; 3) release of interactive games; and 4) expansi