South Korea’s top internet portal Naver Corp. saw its stocks jump almost 12 percent over the last two weeks on expectations that its e-commerce and content business would enjoy a boon from stay-at-home practice amid coronavirus spread.

Shares of Naver surged 11.69 percent for the past two weeks as investors expected performance improvement in its search advertising and webtoon business. On Monday, Naver shares rose 0.58 percent to close at 173,000 won ($140.76).

The company’s search advertising business is expected to produce 11.2 percent higher revenue compared to a year ago, according to KB Securities analyst Lee Dong-ryun, as customers are increasingly turning to online shopping. Search advertising is an online advertising service that allows advertisers to place their products or services displayed on search engine result page.

Naver is in fact seeing an increase in sales from its e-commerce platform such as Naver Shopping. Mirae Asset Daewoo analyst Kim Chang-gwon said that e-commerce is currently estimated to take up 20 percent of the entire sales of its business platform, up from 10 percent in the beginning of last year.

Market experts expected that Naver Webtoon, its content distributing subsidiary, would see a boom in sales as online media consumption is increasing. Hana Financial Investment analyst Hwang Seung-taek projected that sales of Naver’s webtoon service was estimated to have more than doubled from a year earlier.

The company’s online comic content is gaining world-wide popularity thanks to its aggressive marketing. Its content business is taking a growing share in the company’s entire operating profit, from 2.25 percent in 2018 to 3.18 percent last year.

Seoul-based market tracker FnGuide said that market analysts estimated Naver’s operating profit this year to surge 41.14 percent from the previous year to 1 trillion won ($813 million), and sales jump 12.99 percent to 7.45 trillion won.

By Shin Yoo-kyung and Choi Mira

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