Naver has decided to acquire Wallapop, Spain's largest consumer-to-consumer (C2C) company, by investing KRW 600 billion to establish a foothold in the European market.

On the 5th, Naver announced that it would invest EUR 377 million (KRW 604.5 billion) to acquire an additional approximately 70.5% stake in Wallapop for this acquisition. Founded in 2013, Wallapop is Spain's largest C2C second-hand trading platform with over 19 million monthly active users (MAU). It supports consumer-to-consumer transactions across all areas, from everyday goods to electronics and automobiles, and is expanding its business stage to Southern European markets such as Italy and Portugal.

Previously, Naver had invested a total of EUR 190 million (KRW 255 billion) in 2021 and 2023, acquiring approximately 29.5% of Wallapop's shares, with investments of EUR 115 million (KRW 155 billion) and EUR 75 million (KRW 100 billion) respectively, exploring collaboration such as technology application. However, seeing the need for a stronger connection for substantial collaboration and synergy creation, Naver decided to strengthen its partnership by securing management control of Wallapop.

By acquiring the remaining shares, Naver, having secured management control of Wallapop, plans to apply various technologies and business know-how, including search, advertising, payment, and artificial intelligence (AI), to expand its business in the European market.

A Naver representative stated, “We will further expand our global C2C business, centered on North America, Korea, and Japan, to Europe with platforms like Poshmark, Kream, and Soda, continuing the global growth trend in the C2C sector.”

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