TechFlow News, April 14: According to The Asia Business Daily, DS Investment & Securities released a research report lowering NAVER’s target price from its previous level to 300,000 KRW, while maintaining its “Buy” rating. Analyst Seong-ho Choi stated that the downward revision stems from two main factors: first, NAVER’s operating profit margin for this year is projected to decline from 18.3% to 17.6%, driven by rising advertising and e-commerce marketing expenses as well as increasing depreciation costs; second, delayed legislative progress on cryptocurrency-related regulations has directly impacted the proposed merger between NAVER Financial and Dunamu, raising the possibility of further postponement beyond the originally scheduled completion in September.
Previously, DS Securities had assigned a valuation of 15 trillion KRW to NAVER’s cryptocurrency business within its Sum-of-the-Parts (SOTP) valuation model; this portion has now been removed from the current report. Choi also noted that the e-commerce business remains NAVER’s core growth engine going forward, with annual e-commerce sales expected to reach approximately 2.7 trillion KRW.
