NHN Cloud CEO vows to achieve $155 million in sales this year
Kim Dong-hoon, CEO of NHN Cloud, speaks during a press conference at the COEX convention center in Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
NHN Cloud, a local cloud computing service provider, vowed to achieve annual sales of 200 billion won ($155 million), up 25 percent from its 2022 performance of 160 billion won by focusing on domestic government agencies and financial cloud markets, according to its CEO, Thursday.
“It's been a little over a year since NHN Cloud was established in April last year,” Kim Dong-hoon, CEO of NHN Cloud, said during a press conference in Seoul. “The biggest significance was that we became a unicorn company with an enterprise value of over 1 trillion won. Our sales in 2022 reached 160 billion won, with 30 percent coming from NHN Group's affiliates and about 70 percent from the public market.”
“Although the external market situation is not good and the government's related budget is currently reduced, we are aiming for about 200 billion won this year. So far, we have secured around 5,000 customers, a significant increase from 2022 when we had around 3,000 customers.”
Kim said the company has a dominant position in the digital transformation market of government agencies. In 2022, NHN Cloud accounted for 39 percent of the total cloud conversion orders placed by government agencies.
“A government organization switched to cloud computing for its mail and business operation processing system and they said the system was very satisfying. The webpage loading speed has been greatly improved and the satisfaction level has been rated as the highest after switching to the cloud compared to competitors,” the CEO said.
Kim Myung-shin, CTO of NHN Cloud, delivers a keynote speech during the company's NHN Cloud make IT 2023 event at the COEX convention center in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of NHN Cloud
This year, the company will continue to focus on the government agency and financial sectors to lead the market. In the government agency sector, it will expand its cloud computing service business on a regional basis, working with local partners.
The company said it will also strengthen its competitiveness in the financial sector. In addition to its longstanding partnership with KB Financial Group, it also signed an agreement last year with Shinhan Investment & Securities to promote cloud transformation of core services.
The CEO also revealed the company's strategy for expanding into global markets, with plans to expand to the U.S. and Europe from Japan.
“We have a Tokyo region and a Los Angeles region. In Japan, we will start to expand our business to local companies next year. In the U.S., we will focus on Korean companies entering the market there,” he said.
In Europe, NHN Cloud will collaborate with Gcore, a local cloud service provider. “We have been interested in the European region since last year and secured the European region with Gcore. Together with Gcore, we will also try to create business opportunities in Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia,” the CEO said.
On the sidelines of the press conference, the company also held its NHN Cloud make IT 2023 conference. The company's Chief Technology Officer Kim Myung-shin delivered a keynote to market insiders, jobseekers and university students looking for work in the cloud computing industry.
“We have more than 400 partners, up from 170 in April last year, and we will continue to build a win-win ecosystem with our partners, including technical training to strengthen their capabilities and expand business opportunities,” the CTO said. “In the cloud computing business, a strong partner ecosystem is essential. Our partners, whether hardware or software, are our greatest asset.”