Naver takes a sliver of Indonesian giant Emtek

Naver is investing $150 million in Emtek, Indonesia's media behemoth, to expand its footprint in the market.

Emtek is Indonesia’s ninth largest company by market cap, which as of Wednesday was $10.3 billion. It is the only company in the IT business among the country’s top 10.

Emtek owns Indonesia’s top two broadcast channels and the country’s most popular over-the-top media service, Vidio. In IT, it is engaged in online payments, ecommerce and cloud services.

For Naver, the investment is the start of a strategic partnership. The stake Naver will take in Emtek is not substantial, just under 2 percent.

Naver said it hopes to cooperate with Emtek in cloud services and content, where the Korean firm’s intellectual property in webtoons could be used. One possible scenario, for example, would be Naver’s webtoon-based content being shared on Emtek’s digital service.

Indonesia has a developed IT infrastructure and an existing cloud market in which Naver could find new opportunities, according to a company spokesman. In its latest annual business report released last March, Naver described plans to take its cloud service overseas from this year starting with the Southeast Asian market.

“We believe the partnership could create synergy in various fields,” said Lee Jung-an, Naver’s head of investments.

“Commerce, content and cloud are all businesses that Naver wants to expand globally. We will continue to find partners in the Southeast Asia market to find common ground and achieve that goal.”

Several of Naver services have already established a stable user base in the Southeast Asian market. Its mobile messenger Line, for example, has 81 million users in the region. Its webtoon service, which is offered as Line Webtoon, currently ranks as the No.1 cartoon app in Indonesia and Thailand by revenue.

BY SONG KYOUNG-SON [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]