| Type | Public (KRX: 035420) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | June 1999 |
| Headquarters | NHN green factory, 178-1, Jeongja-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, SOUTH KOREA |
| Key people | Kim Sang-Hun, CEO |
| Products | Naver, Hangame, ijji |
| Revenue | $1,026 million USD (2008) |
| Operating income | $249.2 million USD (2006) |
| Net income | $1.6 billion USD (2006) |
| Employees | 17,893 (Jun 2007) |
| Website | www.nhncorp.com |
NHN Corporation (KRX: 035420) is an Internet content service operator headquartered in Seongnam, South Korea and established in 1998. It operates the Naver portal, which is the most popular Internet portal and search engines in South Korea, and Hangame, the country's number one online game portal. It also has affiliates in Japan, China (Ourgame and nciku) and the United States (ijji). It has the largest market capitalization of KOSDAQ-listed companies.[1]
NHN was formed in September 2001 through the merger of Hangame Communications, Inc., an online gaming company, and Naver.com, a search engine company. Both had been formed a few years earlier, with Hangame coming into being in November 1998, and Naver in June 1999. Upon the merger, the name of the company was changed to "Next Human Network", or NHN, although the two divisions continue to operate under their original brand names.
Both Naver and Hangame had established Japanese affiliates in 2000, which continued to operate as separate entities until they too were merged in October 2003. In June 2004, NHN formed "Ourgame", a joint venture company in China with Sea Rainbow Holdings. In July 2005, NHN USA was incorporated, which launched the ijji game portal site in May 2007. nciku, an English to Chinese and Chinese to English online dictionary service was launched in April, 2007. So far, it has become one of the best and most popular websites related to studying Chinese or English just until 2009.
In 2008, NHN appeared on the Forbes Global 2000 list for the first time. [2] In 2009, Kim Sang-Hun of NHN and Jing-Wan Kim of Samsung were the only South Korean bosses to appear on Asia's Fab 50, which is a list of the top 50 "biggest, best bosses in Asia."[3]
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