Naver Corp., South Korea’s top Internet portal operator, is poised to do more to expand its business into Europe, hedging the risk from its heavy reliance on Asian users, with a new leadership team.

Humax Holdings chairman and founder Byun Dae-gyu, who was recently voted to succeed Naver founder Lee Hae-Jin as new chairman of the board, said in a recent interview with Maeil Business Newspaper that he will actively navigate Naver’s way to new markets in Europe as a company adviser.

“Naver will be able to carve out a niche in Europe and its strategy will be certainly successful as I did by exploring there with Korean-made set-top boxes,” Byun said.

Byun is a symbolic figure of first-generation IT entrepreneurs in Korea and has successfully led his set-top box company founded in 1989 to become a global player with exports to more than 90 countries worldwide.

"As the first-generation IT entrepreneur, I demonstrated the growth potential of Korean hardware overseas, and now is the time to do the same thing with Korean software," he said, adding his focus will be on service markets in Europe.

“Combining my business experience in Europe and Lee’s success with social media service LINE in Japan can create synergy and we will have the odds on our side in Europe,” he said.

Byun also said Lee’s efforts to make inroads into Europe and North America beyond Japan deserves to be respected and it is a lot more difficult to do business with a service platform rather than hardware overseas.

By Oh Chan-jong

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]