Naver

Naver is a brand of South Korea’s Internet portal service. 

Naver Corporation stated working since 1999 and it is considered as popular search portal in South Korea, which holds a market share of over 70% since 2011. “Naver” is a combination of the words “navigate” and the suffix, “-er”. It means ‘a human’ who navigate Internet. Also, it is similar to the English “neighbor”. Naver Corporation listed on KOSDAQ (Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) in September 2002 and transferred to KOSPI (Korea Composite Stock Price Index) in November 2008. 

 History 
Naver was launched in June 1999 by the Naver Corporation. In August 2000, Naver serviced the “Comprehensive Search”. In July 2000, Naver Corporation was merged with Hangame which is an online game portal. So they changed their name to NHN. It means “Next Human Network”. They still used the brand name of portal service, which is Naver. In 2002, Naver serviced “Knowledge Search”. This service had a great vogue among Korean Internet users. In 2005, Naver added a blog service. In August 2013, NHN was undergone split off Naver Corporation and NHN Entertainment (formerly ‘Hangame’). Since then, Naver Corporation has managed ‘Naver’.

 Services 
Naver provides not only a search service but also various other services. The popular services are ‘Junior Naver’, which is a portal site aimed at children and ‘Happy Bean’, which is an online donation portal. Also Naver has acquired many Internet service companies. In 2006, Naver acquired a search company ‘1noon’. They acquired ‘me2day’, a micro blog website and ‘Wingbus’, a tour guide website in 2009. Also they established some subsidiary companies. In 2007, they established NHN Japan. It was changed to LINE Corporation in April 2013. Also they established ‘Camp Mobile’, the mobile exclusive affiliated company in March 2013.

References

Other websites
Naver.com
Junior Naver 
Happy bean
Hangame
Line
Naver Webtoon

Category:South Korean websites
Category:Companies of South Korea
Category:1999 establishments in South Korea