Naver reported a total of 2.967 trillion won ($2.58 billion) in ad revenue last year, which was higher than revenue from the three largest television networks (1.23 trillion won) – KBS, MBC, and SBS – and 3,736 local news media outlets (1.54 trillion won) combined. (image: KobizMedia/ Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – A new report has once again highlighted Naver’s dominant position in South Korea in terms of advertising revenue. MezzoMedia, a digital marketing agency, categorized revenue into three types – PC display ads (DA), mobile display ads, and video ads.
For PC DA, which mainly include online banners, Naver outperformed two of its biggest local web portal competitors – Daum (136.5 billion won) and Nate (43.3 billion won) – as well as Facebook (8.1 billion won), and YouTube (5.8 billion won), with revenues of 232.2 billion won.
Naver ranked second at 49.2 billion won for mobile DA after Ad@m (Kakao’s mobile ad platform), which generated 121.8 billion won. Coming in third was Cash Slide, a smartphone lock screen app that gives cash rewards to users engaging in ads, at 35.5 billion won.
In terms of video ads, YouTube topped the list at 116.8 billion won, followed by Facebook (101.6 billion won), Naver (45.6 billion won), and Daum (34 billion won).
Despite YouTube and Facebook leading in terms of video ads, Naver’s impressive performance in PC and mobile DA gave the Korean web portal an upper hand in the local advertising market, said MezzoMedia.
Even without the mobile DA, for which Facebook and YouTube were unaccounted for, Naver triumphed over the two overseas companies at 277.8 billion won, compared to 122.6 billion won and 109.7 billion won, respectively, the company added.
Naver has been making efforts to improve on its mobile DA to replace a PC ad market that is in a gradual decline, while at the same time reorganizing its video platforms to better compete against YouTube.
“We can only speculate about Naver’s unparalleled control of the local ad market, taking into consideration that other ad revenue, like search ads, was excluded from our study,” said an official from MezzoMedia.
Naver reported a total of 2.967 trillion won ($2.58 billion) in ad revenue last year, which was higher than revenue from the three largest television networks (1.23 trillion won) – KBS, MBC, and SBS – and 3,736 local news media outlets (1.54 trillion won) combined.
By Joseph Shin (jss539@koreabizwire.com)
