Ad Revenue to Surprise to the Upside in 3Q-4Q20
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NAVER (035420 KS ) Ad revenue to surprise to the upside in 3Q -4Q20 Internet Smart Channel ads have been selling out since May 18 th , pointing to 3Q20 earnings surprise Company Report After overhauling its mobile layout in 2019, NAVER introduced a number of new May 26, 2020 initiatives to its display ad offerings in 1H20. We expect ad revenue, which has high margins, to grow markedly from 3Q20, driving sharp gains in operating profit. NAVER’s major changes to display ads include the following: 1) expanding mobile performance-based ads on the Glad for Advertiser (GFA) channel and introducing more (Maintain) Buy sophisticated targeting in February; 2) rolling out “premium” speci al display ads (which are 20% more expensive) and increasing special display ad units (from eight to 10) in Target Price (12M, W) ▲▲▲ 330,000 June -July; and 3) launching a new ad product called Smart Channel (placed at the top of mobile pages) on May 18 th . Share Price (05/25/20, W) 241,000 New ads to generate revenue of over W100bn and OP margin of 80-85% Expected Return 37% We forecast Smart Channel alone to generate at least W100bn in revenue per year. Moreover, we see upside risks to our forecast, given: 1) NAVER’s online shopping market share; 2) synergy effects with NAVER Pay; 3) the widespread adoption of OP (20F, Wbn) 1,065 contactless marketing; and 4) auction-based ad pricing and targeting effects. Consensus OP (20F, Wbn) 983 Our W100bn revenue assumption is a conservative estimate based on the current annual EPS Growth (20F, %) 8.2 revenue of branding display ads, which are placed in the middle of m obile pages. We Market EPS Growth (20F, %) 27.1 think Smart Channel revenue could surpass revenue from special display ads (placed at P/E (20F, x) 62.9 the bottom of the main mobile search page; annual revenue of around W400bn). Market P/E (20F, x) 13.3 KOSPI 1,994.60 NAVER’s display ads do not incur any variable costs tied to revenue, aside from agency commissions. Furthermore, the company already generates enough traffic to cover Market Cap (Wbn) 39,587 fixed costs. Ads are a highly profitable business, with 80-85% of revenue translating Shares Outstanding (mn) 164 into operating profit. Free Float (%) 76.0 Foreign Ownership (%) 57.6 We modeled Smart Channel revenue at W40bn (daily a verage of W220mn) for 2H20 Beta (12M) 0.56 and W100bn (daily average of W270mn) for 2021. We revised up our ad revenue 52-Week Low 108,500 growth forecasts to 15.2% YoY for 3Q20 and 28.0% YoY for 4Q20. Looking to 2021, we 52-Week High 241,000 expect ad revenue to grow 24.7% YoY. (%) 1M 6M 12M Raise TP to W330,000; Poised to become second most valuable domestic stock Absolute 25.2 38.5 112.3 in the medium term Relative 18.6 47.5 117.7 We raise our target price on NAVER from W241,000 to W330,000. Our SOTP-derived target price represents the sum of the values of the domestic business, NAVER 260 NAVER KOSPI Webtoon, and NAVER Financial, plus the market value of LINE (3938 JP/CP: JPY5,360). 210 While NAVER’s stock has seen a strong rally, we believe expectations on 2H20 earnings 160 and share price momentum have also increased. In 2H20, we expect: 1) the e-commerce 110 segment to continue growth; 2) NAVER Webtoon’s global business to turn a profit; 3) NAVER Financial’s business to gather steam; and 4) ad revenue to surprise on the back of 60 5.19 9.19 1.20 5.20 Smart Channel ads and targeting. We also believe consolidated margin improvements could accelerate once the LINE-Z Holdings (4689 JP/CP: JPY449) merger is finalized in Mirae Asset Daewoo Co., Ltd. October. [ Internet ] FY (Dec.) 12/17 12/18 12/19 12/20F 12/21F 12/22F Revenue (Wbn) 4,678 5,587 6,593 7,612 8,933 10,542 Chang -kwean Kim +822 -3774 -1614 OP (Wbn) 1,179 943 710 1,065 1,823 2,110 [email protected] OP Margin (%) 25.2 16.9 10.8 14.0 20.4 20.0 NP (Wbn) 773 649 583 629 1,315 1,512 EPS (W) 4,689 3,937 3,538 3,829 8,008 9,203 ROE (%) 18.5 13.0 10.6 10.3 18.8 18.1 P/E (x) 37.1 31.0 52.7 62.9 30.1 26.2 P/B (x) 4.8 3.1 4.3 5.1 4.4 3.8 Dividend Yield (%) 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 Note: All figures are based on consolidated K-IFRS; NP refers to net profit attributable to controlling interests Source: Company data, Mirae Asset Daewoo Research estimates May 26, 2020 NAVER C O N T E N T S I. Display ad revenue to level up 3 1. KakaoTalk Bizboard vs. NAVER GFA and Smart Channel 3 2. Expansion of GFA targeted ads in February 4 3. Special display ad pricing and volume to begin rising in June 6 4. Launch of Smart Channel ads in May 9 II. Ad revenue to surge from 3Q20 through 2021 10 1. Lower online ad penetration rate 10 2. Display ad revenue to surge, driven by e-commerce 11 III. Valuation 14 Raise TP to W330,000 14 Mirae Asset Daewoo Research 2 May 26, 2020 NAVER I. Display ad revenue to level up 1. KakaoTalk Bizboard vs. NAVER GFA and Smart Channel On May 18 th , NAVER rolled out a new ad offering called Smart Channel at the top of its mobile pages. The ad product has a number of similarities to KakaoTalk Bizboard (TalkBoard), such as the positioning of ads. In the case of TalkBoard, KakaoTalk acts as an e-commerce marketing platform, with advertisers utilizing KakaoTalk channels. In 4Q19 and 1Q20, Kakao Shopping’s GMV drove overall earnings improvements. NAVER, meanwhile, plans to use its Smart Channel to implement an integrated marketing system that connects the awareness-interest-search- purchase stages to create a seamless ad-search-shopping process. TalkBoard has seen rapid growth, with the number of advertisers rising to 5,400 and daily average revenue reaching W500mn. While TalkBoard generates a considerable number of impressions and clicks, its ability to convert them into revenue has been somewhat disappointing. We believe NAVER’s Smart Channel revenue will largely hinge on how precisely ads can be targeted. In our view, the two keywords for the online ad market in 2H20 will be online shopping and targeting. Figure 1. KakaoTalk Bizboard vs. NAVER Smart Channel Source: Mirae Asset Daewoo Research Table 1. KakaoTalk Bizboard ads: Monthly revenue 1/19 2/19 3/19 4/19 5/19 6/19 7/19 8/19 9/19 10/19 11/19 12/19 Daily revenue assumption (Wbn) 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.4 0.5 Monthly revenue (Wbn) 5.7 6.3 6.9 7.5 9.0 10.5 12.0 13.5 Total time spent (bn min.) 35.2 30.7 34.8 34.6 36.9 35.1 38.2 37.2 36.5 40.2 39.3 42.1 Revenue/total time spent (W) 0.15 0.18 0.18 0.20 0.25 0.26 0.31 0.32 Source: Nielsen KoreanClick, Mirae Asset Daewoo Research estimates Mirae Asset Daewoo Research 3 May 26, 2020 NAVER 2. Expansion of GFA targeted ads in February On February 3 rd , NAVER began expanding mobile performance-based ads on its GFA channel, which is an ad platform that allows advertisers to directly purchase ads online. The company began selling Band ads on the GFA channel in April 2019. As illustrated in <Figure 2>, the company’s display ads were previously sold on the NAVER Open Sales Platform (NOSP), a guarantee-based ad platform that ensured a predetermined number of impressions on a specific page. Because such guarantee-based ads were based on flat-rate models like cost per time (CPT) and cost per mille (CPM), most advertisers were large corporations that could afford to pay tens of millions of won per unit time. <Figure 3> summarizes the key characteristics of the GFA platform. 1) The GFA platform offers better accessibility, enabling advertisers to bypass agencies and directly purchase ads. 2) Unlike in the past, when advertisers were charged a flat rate for impressions, advertisers can now choose from a variety of pricing models, such as CPM, cost per click (CPC), and cost per view (CPV). They can also decide how much they want to spend through real-time bidding. 3) GFA’s main feature is that it offers more sophisticated targeting. To date, domestic media firms have been somewhat cautious in providing online ad targeting, which is already widely adopted in other countries. Rivals like YouTube and Kakao (035720 KS/Buy/TP: W280,000/CP: W268,000) have expanded their targeted ad services, and NAVER has also begun selling targeted ads in 1H20. The GFA platform offers not only demographic targeting (age, gender, etc.) but also behavior/interest targeting based on customer data. The number of interest-targeting categories was expanded from 76 to 235 on May 14 th . As shown in <Figure 4>, GFA targeting analyzes user interests and preferences based on behavioral data. We believe the GFA ad platform will help attract smaller advertisers and increase the utilization of targeted ads, supporting strong growth in e-commerce-related ad revenue.