Online sellers at Naver reap 1.18 tln won in 2017

SEOUL, June 12 (Yonhap) -- Online sellers are forecast to have earned some 1.18 trillion won (US$1.09 billion) in profits at a shopping platform operated by South Korea's top Internet portal operator Naver Corp., an industry report showed Tuesday.

According to the report by researchers led by Yoo Byung-joon of Seoul National University (SNU), Naver shopping sellers took home a tidy sum of money, with the total amount of transactions reaching 7 trillion won in 2017.

"More than 2.48 billion visits were made to Naver shopping last year on the back of effects of indirect advertisement," the report said, adding that online sellers can reduce the cost of advertising just by using the platform.

The SNU report said that 32.3 percent of sellers at Smartstore, an online shopping mall for small merchants directly operated by Naver, were in their 20s. The sellers in their 30s accounted for 38.3 percent.

Naver earlier announce that it reported a record-breaking annual performance, with operating income reaching 1.17 trillion won on sales of 4.67 trillion won, for last year. It said the strong performance reflected solid demand of its key businesses.

khj@yna.co.kr
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