South Korean internet giant Naver has agreed to buy Poshmark, a popular second-hand retailer based in the United States, for $1.2 billion. This is Naver’s largest acquisition to date and a sign of the company’s ambitions for global expansion.
Sometimes referred to as the “Google of Korea,” Naver is a broad-based internet service provider that started out as a search engine before expanding into email, messaging, news aggregator and commerce. e-commerce. Its website and mobile app suite are some of the most popular Korean apps.
Naver’s acquisition of Poshmark gives the Korean tech giant a sizable foothold in the North American resale industry. The company has expanded into Japan and other markets in the region, most notably as the parent company, along with SoftBank, of the popular messaging app Line.
Naver has set its sights beyond Asia. In 2021, it acquired its first North American business, Wattpad, a Toronto company that provides a platform for reading and writing original stories, for $600 million. In 2017, they acquired Xerox Research Center Europe, a France-based center focused on breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
Choi Soo-Yeon, chief executive officer of Naver, said the acquisition marks the company’s rise into the global “C2C” market, the type of business in which customers sell goods and services to each other. through a third-party platform such as eBay or Craigslist. She is particularly focused on fashion, which has seen a global rise in recent months and accounts for 15% of South Korea’s e-commerce market.
Naver will pay $17.90 per share, a 15% premium over Poshmark’s closing price of $15.57 on Monday. Poshmark will continue to be led by its chief executive, Manish Chandra.
Big tech companies are focusing on the intersection of social media and e-commerce as a new growth path. With the success of live streaming and short-form video apps like TikTok, many people are looking for new ways to translate social behaviors into in-app purchases.
Poshmark was founded in 2011 and works like a hybrid between Instagram and eBay. It allows users to post photos of items for sale in a virtual “wardrobe” from which others can shop. It’s one of the biggest apps in a booming global resale market that’s expected to double over the next five years, according to a report. slideshow by ThredUp, a competitor.
The platform has over 80 million registered users, mainly in the US, Canada, Australia and India. In 2021, the company achieved revenue of $326 million, up 24% year-on-year.
With the acquisition, Poshmark will gain access to Naver’s extensive network of users and technology products. On a conference call, Mr. Chandra cited Naver’s technological prowess in areas like live streaming and artificial intelligence as reasons for the sale.
