2030 Creating an All-Optical - Intelligent Internet Huawei Asia Pacific ISP Summit

North American

Poshmark has been acquired by a South Korean internet behemoth in a $1.2 billion deal.

With its most recent acquisition, Naver has greatly increased its footprint in the North American secondhand retail market.

(Chang Che is a journalist that focuses on Asian technology. Oct. 4, 2022

a.m. 3:48 update online ET)

Naver is a multifaceted internet service provider

Naver, sometimes referred to as the "Google of South Korea," has searched outside of Asia for its most recent purchases. Credit... Reuters/Heo Ran

Poshmark, a well-known secondhand shop based in the United States, will be acquired by the South Korean internet behemoth Naver for $1.2 billion. It is the biggest acquisition Naver has made to date and a reflection of the company's growing international aspirations.

Naver is a multifaceted internet service provider that started out as a search engine before branching out into email, messaging, news aggregation, and e-commerce. It is sometimes referred to as the "Google of South Korea." Some of South Korea's most widely used websites and mobile apps are those of this company.

Poshmark was acquired by Naver, a South Korean tech powerhouse, giving it a significant presence in the North American resale market. The business has already entered Japan and other local markets, most notably when it joined forces with SoftBank to become the parent company of the well-known messaging app Line.

Beyond Asia, Naver has its eyes set. For $600 million in 2021, it bought Wattpad, a Toronto-based firm that provides a platform for reading and producing unique stories. It bought the French-based Xerox Research Center Europe in 2017, which was devoted to making advances in artificial intelligence.

The acquisition, according to Naver CEO Choi Soo-Yeon, accelerates the company's entry into the worldwide "C2C" market, which refers to the type of commerce in which customers exchange goods and services via a third-party platform like eBay or Craigslist. She gave fashion special attention, which accounts for 15% of South Korea's e-commerce business and has experienced a recent global boom.

Naver will pay $17.90 for each share of Poshmark, 15% more than Monday's closing price of $15.57. The company's CEO, Manish Chandra, will continue to lead Poshmark.

Tuesday's trade in Seoul saw an almost 9% decline in Naver's stock. The stock of the corporation has decreased by about 60% since mid-2021, when it peaked.

Large tech corporations are focusing on the nexus between social media and e-commerce as a potential new growth area. Due to the popularity of livestreaming and short-form video apps like TikTok, many people are looking for innovative methods to convert social habits into in-app purchases.

Poshmark, which was established in 2011, functions as a hybrid of Instagram and eBay. Users can upload pictures of objects for sale in a virtual "closet" where others can buy them. It is one of the biggest applications in a developing global resale sector, which ThredUp, a rival, predicts will treble in the next five years.

Over 80 million users have registered on the network, predominantly from the United States, Canada, Australia, and India. The business lost $98 million in 2021 while generating $326 million in revenue, a 24 percent increase over the previous year.

Poshmark will have access to Naver's enormous user base and technological offerings thanks to the agreement. Mr. Chandra explained the deal in a conference call by pointing to Naver's technological prowess in fields like livestreaming and artificial intelligence.