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| Naver CEO Kim Sang-hun speaks during a press conference in Yeoksam-dong, southern Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of Naver |
By Yoon Sung-won
Naver said Monday it will expand its platform business to help small businesses and content creators seeking sustainability and global expansion.
The company said it has begun a project called "Flower" through which it will integrate its support for small businesses and content creators that it had been providing separately.
"Most domestic small businesses and content creators are using Naver's platform," Naver CEO Kim Sang-hun said during a meeting with reporters in Seoul, Monday. "We believe that Naver's role is to help them achieve greater success."
Kim stressed that the combined successes of smaller businesses will revitalize the Korean economy.
"We will work to bring back the vitality of our economy with the fountain effect of numerous successes by small businesses, not with the trickle-down effect of a large conglomerate," he said.
As the nation's largest web portal, Naver attracts more than 26 million visitors who enter over 300 million search queries and stream 18 million videos every day. As a business and content platform, it has 1.6 million local businesses, more than 400 professional webcomic authors, 150 web novel writers, 10,000 illustrators and 3,300 indie musicians.
By providing more support for small businesses, the company said it aims to attract more than 10,000 new small businesses to its platform every year and is optimistic that over 1,500 of them will earn more than 100 million won each in annual sales.
For small businesses, Naver said it will help them deal with complicated processes in the early stages, aiming at vitalizing startups. To this end, the company said it will encourage startups to share their business knowhow, provide proxy services for payment, delivery and other technological issues and boost their business exposure through advertising on the web portal.
For content creators, it will help them work in a sustainable environment and ultimately encourage them to go global as a way to motivate their creativity.
To do so, Naver will expand the application of its illustration content platform "Grafolio" to include not only illustrations but also photography, design, art and background music. It will also hold original content contest exhibitions to discover talented artists doing webcomics, illustrations and novels.
More importantly, the company said it will diversify the income structure of content creators by helping them connect with investors through crowdfunding and by connecting them to digital content marketplaces. Once the content creators prove successful here, the company pledged to help them make it on the global stage through marketing support.
"Though we are investing in our business, we believe it is not enough," Kim said. "Supporting small businesses and content creators will be a part of our efforts for balance and for society. These efforts will be the basis of our businesses that we will run from now on."
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