South Korean Internet Giant Buys Poshmark in $1.2 Billion Deal

The South Korean internet giant Naver has agreed to buy the United States-based secondhand retailer Poshmark for over $1 billion. Naver is broadening its global ambitions with the largest acquisition to date.

Naver is a wide-ranging internet services provider that began as a search engine and has since expanded into email, messaging, news aggregation and e- commerce. It has a website and a suite of mobile apps.

The acquisition of Poshmark gives Naver a foothold in the North American resale industry. The parent company of the popular messaging app Line had already expanded into Japan and other markets in the region.

Naver wants to go past Asia. Wattpad, a Toronto company that offers a platform for reading and writing original stories, was acquired in 2021. The Xerox Research Center Europe is based in France.

The chief executive of Naver said the acquisition marks the company's acceleration into the global "C2C" market, where customers sell goods and services to each other via a third-party platform. 15 percent of South Korea's e- commerce market is devoted to fashion, which has seen a surge in recent months.

Naver will pay $17.90 per share, which is 15 percent higher than the closing price on Monday. Manish Chandra will continue to lead the company.

Big tech companies are looking at the intersection of social media and e- commerce as a way to grow. With the success of short-form video and livestreaming apps, many are looking for new ways to channel social behaviors into in-app purchases.

It's like a mix of eBay andInstagram. Users can post photos of items for sale in a virtual "closet" from which others can make purchases. According to a projection by ThredUp, it is one of the largest apps in the resale market that is set to double in the next five years.

Most of the platform's registered users are in the US, Canada, Australia and India. The company posted $326 million in revenue, a 24 percent increase from the year before.

The deal will give Poshmark access to Naver's network of users. Naver's technology prowess in areas like livestreaming and artificial intelligence was cited as a reason for the sale.