Naver

Naver is the South Korean internet giant people associate with search, web portals, messaging and a thick bundle of everyday online services. By our assessment, its strength is that it is not just a search box: news, blogs, maps, shopping, payments and other local tools live around it, which makes it unusually sticky inside its home market. The downside is that this kind of platform can feel crowded and locally specific, so it is less natural for outsiders than a cleaner global rival. In practice Naver is a portal-first company, and it sits closer to the everyday internet than to a single product people install and forget.