According to regulatory filings, the South Korean internet company earned an operating profit of 451.3 billion won ($337.4 million) in the July to September quarter, down from 570.6 billion won a year earlier.
Its operating margin narrowed to 13 percent from 18.2 percent. Naver said the decline came from larger investments in infrastructure, content and offline data aimed at strengthening its AI capabilities.
Operating expenses rose 17.7 percent to 3.02 trillion won.
Revenue rose to 3.47 trillion won, with commerce, fintech and global consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trading all growing. Excluding the effect of consolidating Wallapop, a Spanish secondhand marketplace, revenue grew 9 percent.
Net profit fell 45.2 percent to 402.5 billion won.
Revenue from Naver Platform, which covers search advertising and shopping, rose 7.3 percent to 1.95 trillion won despite the Chuseok holiday.
Advertising sales grew 5.5 percent as Naver expanded AI-driven ad products. Service revenue climbed 13.1 percent on more users of its Naver Plus Store shopping app, its paid membership and its N Delivery service.
Naver plans to set up a logistics subsidiary and strengthen delivery infrastructure built around leased fulfillment centers, Chief Executive Choi Soo-yeon said in a statement.
The Financial Platform unit, which runs the Npay payment service, grew 14.1 percent to 487.7 billion won. Npay payment volume rose 15.6 percent to 26.2 trillion won, led by a 21.8 percent increase in payments made outside Naver's own services.
The Global Initiatives unit rose 15.9 percent to 1.04 trillion won. C2C revenue jumped 47.8 percent, helped by Wallapop and trading on U.S. platform Poshmark and Japan's Soda.
Enterprise revenue, which includes a digital twin project in Saudi Arabia, grew 33 percent, while content revenue fell 5.1 percent.
Naver said revenue from its AI factory business, a computing infrastructure venture with Brookfield and Nvidia, will start showing up in its results from the first half of next year.
"Having secured early customers by signing computing service supply contracts worth about 2 trillion won for the AI factory business, AI factory revenue will be generated in stages," Choi said.
Naver also plans to launch a personal AI agent app before the end of the year.
AJP Takeaways
- Naver's operating profit for July-September 2026 fell 20.9 percent from a year earlier to 451.3 billion won, as spending on AI infrastructure, content and offline data increased, the company said on Nov. 12, 2026.
- Revenue rose 10.7 percent to 3.47 trillion won, while net profit attributable to parent-company shareholders fell 45 percent to 399.5 billion won.
- Naver has signed computing service supply contracts worth about 2 trillion won for its AI factory business with Brookfield and Nvidia, and expects related revenue from the first half of 2027.
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