NHN to beef up mobile Internet service

SEOUL, March 31 (Yonhap) -- NHN Corp., the operator of South Korea's top Internet
portal Naver, said Tuesday it will strengthen its mobile Internet service in an
effort to create a new profit model.
NHN's mobile Web service, launched in July 2006, has been hampered by the
government's rule on the mandatory use of locally developed access software in
mobile phones, which will be lifted next month.
"We will upgrade our mobile Internet service by the end of May by offering
diverse applications," NHN said in a statement. "The souped-up service will allow
users to access Naver on their mobile phones in a PC-like environment."
The government plans to eliminate the regulation on the use of the home-grown
software called "WIPI," which it mandated in 2005 for all mobile phones
delivering Internet access. WIPI has been considered to be ineffective for some
Internet portals in providing their services in a more user-friendly way.
NHN also said it will enhance a social networking service on the mobile phone via
its micro-blogging service, which allows users to publish brief text messages and
other contents on their blogs by handheld devices.
The company continued to grow its dominance among the local Internet portals. Its
2008 net income surged 30.6 percent on-year to 365.7 billion won (US$267.1
million), with its sales jumping 31.3 percent to 1.21 trillion won.
In tech-savvy South Korea, about 45.6 million people, or more than 93 percent of
the total population, own a mobile phone.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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