South Korea’s intenet giant Naver Corp. reported a marginal increase in operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2017, but its full-year results hit record levels on strong performance of its business platform sector involving search ads and online shopping.

The company said in its regulatory filing on Thursday its consolidated operating profit reached 291.1 billion won ($274.8 million) in the fourth quarter, up 0.3 percent from a year ago. Sales rose 16.7 percent to 1.27 trillion won.

Naver blamed the relatively lackluster fourth quarter performance to large expenses for LINE and other platform upgrades. Such operating costs were 464.4 billion won in the final quarter, jumping 17.8 percent from a year ago and 15.6 percent from the third quarter.

At 1:50 pm Thursday, Naver shares were up 3.42 percent at 908,000 won.

By division, display advertisement sales from web banners and other digital products came to 129.6 billion won in the October-December period, up 5.4 percent from a year earlier and 13.5 percent from the previous quarter. Business platform sales reached 574.4 billion won, adding 16.9 percent from three months ago and 4.7 percent from a year ago.

For full 2017, Naver performed its best, raking in an operating profit of 1.18 trillion won against revenue of 4.68 trillion won, up 7 percent and 16.3 percent, respectively from the previous year.

A Naver official said the company will continue its path of investment expansion in the area of technology and content creation to acquire new platforms and market shares in the borderless internet market.

Naver said its 2017 investment in artificial intelligence and promising new start-ups amounted to more than 400 billion won. About half of the budget was disbursed to help foster home-grown start-ups.

By Seo Dong-cheol and Minu Kim

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