Latest news with #ChoiSoo-yeon
Korea Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
What OpenAI's expansion to Korea means for market?
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has officially established a Korean subsidiary, marking a significant step in its expansion into the Korean market. The move comes after earlier regional entries in Tokyo and Singapore, underlining Asia's growing importance in the company's global strategy. OpenAI's approach goes far beyond simply opening subsidiaries, according to industry sources on Friday. In each country, the firm is implementing a multilayered strategy that includes developing localized artificial intelligence models, forging enterprise partnerships, aligning with public policy and investing in digital infrastructure. Sources say there are compelling reasons for OpenAI's arrival in Korea. The nation continues to rank among the global leaders in key technological and societal metrics related to AI. The 2025 AI index report published by Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered AI showed that Korea topped the world in AI patent applications per 100,000 people. As of 2023, Korea filed 17.3 AI patents per 100,000 people — surpassing Luxembourg (15.3), China (6.1) and the US (5.2). Korea also ranks high in AI receptiveness. The same report cited global surveys indicating that Koreans, along with people in China, Indonesia and Thailand, exhibit a particularly positive perception of AI. The environment fosters early commercialization, smoother beta testing and rapid user adoption of AI-based services. 'Korea is not merely a technology adopter,' said an industry source who requested anonymity. 'It is a proven test bed where global AI strategies can be executed and scaled. The new Seoul office should be seen not just as a local outpost, but as a strategic pivot point.' OpenAI's anticipated roles in Korea include: enhancing GPT models with Korean language optimization, deploying ChatGPT Enterprise for domestic corporations and public institutions, establishing research hubs in collaboration with academia and industry, recruiting and training local AI talent and engaging in policy and infrastructure partnerships. Of particular interest is the potential for deeper cooperation with the Korean government. Through initiatives like "OpenAI for Countries," the company may explore building AI data centers and testing infrastructure within Korea. OpenAI's Korean entry also raises questions about its possible impact on the local search engine landscape. With last year's debut of ChatGPT Search — a service that blends chatbot capabilities with real-time information retrieval — OpenAI has begun nudging into territory long dominated by domestic platforms. As of Wednesday, according to Internet Trend, Naver held 57.41 percent of Korea's search market, followed by Google at 34.45 percent and Microsoft Bing at 3.98 percent. However, this marks a notable decline from Naver's nearly 80 percent market share in 2015. Despite the shifting landscape, Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon expressed confidence during the company's first quarter earnings call earlier this month, saying that 'there has been no negative traffic impact from generative AI services.' Instead of competing on raw market share, Naver is focusing on increasing user engagement through AI-powered features like 'AI Briefing,' launched in March. The tool summarizes search results and provides source citations in response to user queries. OpenAI, for its part, appears unbothered by the speculation. When asked if it now considers itself a 'search platform,' the firm's official responded with a smile, emphasizing that 'we're not here to target any specific portal's market share — it's simply a global trend unfolding.'
Korea Herald
20-04-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
Naver, Kurly form alliance to challenge Coupang in fresh food e-commerce
Naver and Kurly have formed a strategic alliance in an apparent move to challenge Coupang, the unrivaled No. 1 in the nation's crowded e-commerce market. The collaboration is widely seen as a complementary match between an e-commerce player that specializes in fresh food and a tech-driven platform giant. Under the partnership announced Friday, grocery delivery service Market Kurly's products will officially launch on Naver's artificial intelligence-powered shopping platform, Naver Plus Store, later this year. For Naver, the move helps shore up a weak spot in the fresh food category, while Kurly, in return, gains access to Naver's vast user base as an expanded sales channel. 'Kurly and Naver have unique competitive strengths that other platforms can't easily replicate, making us ideal partners,' said Kurly CEO Sophie Kim. 'The new partnership with Kurly, known for its fresh food curation, will further enrich Naver's commerce ecosystem by attracting more users to experience quality service and high-grade products,' said Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon. As of last year, Naver and Coupang's estimated e-commerce transaction volumes stood at 50 trillion won ($35.1 billion) and 55 trillion won, respectively. Coupang, which first surpassed 1 trillion won in annual sales in 2015, has grown its business some 40-fold in just nine years. Naver is doubling down on strengthening its shopping division — which accounts for roughly 27 percent of its total revenue — building on its strong foothold in categories like fashion, beauty and electronics. In recent years, fresh food has emerged as a highly strategic category in the domestic e-commerce market due to its frequency of purchase and high repeat rates, which help build customer loyalty — a key driver of long-term platform growth. Coupang currently dominates the next-day fresh food delivery market through its vertically integrated model, including Rocket Delivery and Rocket Fresh. Although Kurly was the first in Korea to launch such a service in 2015, Coupang's aggressive, capital-fueled expansion since 2018 has pushed it ahead. Over the years, Naver has pursued an open-market strategy, partnering with retailers like E-mart Mall and Homeplus, and even forming a stock-swap alliance with Shinsegae. However, the lack of its own logistics network has limited its competitiveness in fast delivery. With Kurly's dawn delivery infrastructure, Naver now has a chance to fill that gap. Industry watchers are also paying attention to whether the partnership could help reignite efforts for a Kurly initial public offering. Kurly passed a preliminary listing review in 2022, but reportedly shelved IPO plans the following year after failing to secure a valuation that met expectations. Meanwhile, Korea's e-commerce landscape is heating up amid rising pressure from fast-expanding Chinese platforms. The estimated annual transaction volume for AliExpress and Temu combined reached 4.3 trillion won last year — an 85 percent increase from the previous year, according to WiseApp and Retail. In response, traditional e-commerce companies in Korea are starting to seek out survival strategies. Shinsegae Group subsidiary Gmarket has announced plans to establish a joint venture with Alibaba International. The goal is to create a powerful new shopping platform by combining Shinsegae's strong domestic presence and brand trust with Alibaba Group's information technology capabilities.
Korea Herald
07-02-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
Naver chief hails DeepSeek shaking up competitive AI landscape
Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon has lauded the emergence of Chinese artificial intelligence service DeepSeek, calling it an 'innovative milestone' that proves how latecomers can challenge industry leaders with relatively small-scale investments. During Friday's earnings call for the October-December 2024 period, the Korean tech giant chief reaffirmed the company's commitment to narrowing the technology gap with leading AI firms amid rising competitive intensity with the advent of DeepSeek. 'We are dedicated to strengthening multimodal capabilities and inference performance to ensure we do not lag behind industry leaders,' she said. "At the same time, we will continue to explore various cost-efficient measures." The CEO elaborated on Naver's AI strategy by juxtaposing it with approaches from industry peers. 'While some rivals are aggressively expanding AI capabilities to pioneer new markets, our goal with HyperClova X is to optimize model efficiency and speed for Naver's ecosystem. We plan to roll out an update for our flagship model this month and demonstrate tangible results in multimodal applications, including voice, image and video, within the year." HyperClova X, the latest edition of HyperClova, which was launched in 2021, is an upgraded version of the hyperscale AI platform tailored for the Korean language. It was developed to keep up with the ChatGPT-fueled global competition for linguistic AI. Despite the company's focus on internal AI development, Choi said the IT giant is open to partnerships with global Big Tech firms and other AI models. She also hinted that there are also ongoing discussions with them. Choi emphasized that rather than causing a fundamental shift, recent developments have accelerated Naver's AI evolution. "Owning our proprietary AI models gives us the flexibility to strategically consider external large language model integration. We anticipate that AI-driven service competition, particularly in our domain, will intensify and accelerate,' the CEO said. Additionally, she underscored Naver's competitive advantage in AI-enabled services. "As one of the leading internet platforms with the most extensive repository of high-quality data and AI-driven service integrations, Naver is well-positioned to leverage these shifts. These developments will further accelerate our business expansion,' Choi said. In its 2024 earnings report released earlier in the day, Naver said it had achieved a historic milestone by surpassing 10 trillion won ($6.91 billion) in annual revenue for the first time among domestic internet companies. The company reported a total revenue of 10.74 trillion won in 2024, up 11 percent from a year earlier. Annual operating profit surged by 32.9 percent on-year to 1.98 trillion won. Naver had initially crossed the 5 trillion won revenue threshold in 2018 and has since accelerated its business expansion, particularly in new ventures, to double revenue within six years. For the fourth quarter alone, Naver recorded 2.89 trillion won in revenue, up 13.7 percent from a year ago. Operating profit for the quarter reached 542 billion won, a 33.7 percent increase from a year earlier. These figures exceeded the market consensus of 2.8 trillion won in revenue and 529.4 billion in operating profit compiled by financial data provider FnGuide. Naver's impressive annual performance was driven by balanced growth across all business sectors, with each quarter marking record-breaking achievements. Breaking down the October-December period performance by segment, its mainstay search platform unit saw sales grow 14.7 percent on-year to 1.06 trillion won amid efforts to strengthen its platform's competitiveness. Sales from the commerce unit rose 17.4 percent on-year to 775.1 billion won and revenue from the financial technology unit improved 12.6 percent on-year to 400.9 billion won. The content unit saw its revenue inch up 0.2 percent on-year to 467.3 billion won and sales from the cloud business jump 41.1 percent on-year to 177.6 billion won. In a separate disclosure, Naver announced that its founder, Lee Hae-jin, is set to return as a board member. If approved at the upcoming shareholders meeting next month, Lee will reclaim the position as chair of the board after a seven-year hiatus, having stepped down in 2017.
