Naver signs MOU with Vietnam's Phenikaa, an online education company

Le Anh Son, left in the front row, CEO of Vietnam's Phenikaa, and Kim Hyo, right, head of Naver Whale team, sign a memorandum of understanding at Phenikaa University in Hanoi on Friday. [NAVER]

Naver is entering Vietnam’s online education market, the IT company said Tuesday.

On Friday, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Phenikaa, the biggest education service company in Vietnam. Phenikaa runs schools, including a university in Hanoi, and operates IT service businesses, such as those dealing in learning management systems and autonomous driving technologies.

The two companies plan to develop a localized version of Naver’s Whale Space web service. Whale Space is a website through which users can have access to some 50 education-related software programs. The Whale Space service is currently used by Korea’s 17 regional education offices.

Naver added that it will support its partner companies, which are providing online services through Whale Space, in entering the Southeast Asian market through the collaboration with Phenikaa.

The companies are also discussing supplying Whalebook laptop, a device optimized for Naver’s Whale Space service, said Naver.

“The signing of this MOU is a recognition of the growth potential of Naver’s education technology business in the global market,” said Kim Hyo, head of the Naver Whale division.

The signing ceremony was held on Friday at Phenikaa University in Hanoi.

Kwon Oh-hyung, senior vice president of Qualcomm and president of the company’s business in the Asia-Pacific region, also attended the ceremony, to discuss possible cooperation between Qualcomm and Naver in terms of the Whalebook laptop device.

“We will actively review if Whalebook the laptop would be able to create synergy with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c compute platform and others,” said Kim.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]