Naver Cloud looks to join AWS, Microsoft as Asia's top cloud service provider

South Korea-based Naver Cloud Corp. is determined to become one of the key cloud service providers in Japan and Southeast Asian markets, following only Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, by making large-scale investments in technology development and manpower.

“Naver Cloud is the only cloud provider in Korea to offer various types of cloud services backed by proprietary technologies,” said Kim Tae-Chang, the chief of cloud business at Naver Cloud, as he highlighted the company's competitiveness during an online media roundtable on Sept. 16.

Portal giant Naver Corp. launched the cloud unit in 2017 with 22 solutions. And over the past four years, Naver Cloud has increased its product portfolio by nine times, offering around 189 products.

"We have grown drastically over four years, ready to achieve the same level of success as global players in terms of products and technologies," said a company official, adding that Naver Cloud's competitiveness is owing to continuous investments.

According to Kim, the company's technological prowess has laid the groundwork for its global expansion. But initially, there were concerns over Naver being a latecomer to a market that was already dominated by major global players.

“But we dispelled the concerns, having surpassed the market's average growth rate. And now, cloud services are Naver’s core growth drivers,” said Kim.

Moving forward, Naver Cloud aims to narrow the gap with cloud providers such as AWS, which is currently ahead in the domestic market, alongside beefing up its global expansion plans through large-scale investments.

“We plan to secure fresh growth drivers by reinvesting 80% of our annual revenue back into technology development and manpower by 2023," said Jang Bum-sik, the head of Naver Cloud's platform business.

Naver Cloud is also looking to speed up the launch of its new products. Currently, the company is developing Cloud Data Box, which offers business data and analysis; Data Forest, a platform that provides big data analysis; as well as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) services.

In addition, the company has been shoring up the solution development for segments such as Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and isomorphic encryption.

Last year, Naver Cloud logged revenue of 273.7 billion won ($233.4 million), up by 41% compared to the year-earlier period. This is far above the global and domestic public cloud market growth rate, which stood at 29.3% and 18.7%, respectively.

This year, the company expects to post revenue of around 400 billion won, about a 46% annual increase.

Write to Min-ki Koo at kook@hankyung.com
Danbee Lee edited this article.