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SEOUL (Reuters) - Naver Corp, South Korea's leading online portal operator, said on Thursday its second-quarter profit rose 39 percent from a year earlier, beating analyst estimates on solid earnings from ad revenue.
The result was likely boosted by its Japan-based messenger app service Line, which analysts expect to report its biggest ever quarterly sales later in the day.
Naver reported April-June operating profit of 191.2 billion Korean won (£110.39 million), compared with a 187 billion won mean estimate of 26 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It reported operating profit of 138 billion won a year earlier and 189 billion won in January-March.
Naver said earlier this month that Line had applied for an initial public offering in Tokyo. A source told Reuters Line could be valued at $10 billion to $20 billion and was likely to launch the IPO in October with a listing, possibly in the United States, in November.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Stephen Coates and Richard Pullin)