Naver's net profit for the second quarter exceeded market average expectations.

Thanks to the steady growth of its core search platform and e-commerce business, South Korean internet giant Naver reported solid performance for the second quarter. Naver's results exceeded market average expectations. At the same time, the company behind this dominant Korean search engine has been expanding its artificial intelligence initiatives, recently entering into billion-dollar collaborations with AI chip leader Nvidia and US private equity firm Bow Capital to establish gigawatt-level AI cloud infrastructure. The company announced on Friday that its net profit for the April to June period increased by 42% year-on-year to 704.3 billion won. This figure surpassed the average expectation of 471.71 billion won compiled by FactSet. Revenue rose 16% to 3.389 trillion won, while operating profit slightly decreased by 0.2% to 520.3 billion won. This year, the company's stock price has fallen by approximately 7%, underperforming against the nearly 50% increase in the benchmark KOSPI index.