Gmarket's Q1 profit drops 6 pct on higher costs

SEOUL, April 29 (Yonhap) -- Gmarket Inc., South Korea's No. 1 online auctioneer,
said Wednesday its first-quarter earnings fell 6 percent from a year earlier due
to increased marketing expenses.

Gmarket earned 9.7 billion won (US$7.2 million) in the January-March period,
compared with 10.3 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory
filing.
Sales rose 11 percent to 71.9 billion won from 64.4 billion won the previous
year, while operating profit fell 31 percent from a year ago to 7.1 billion won,
Gmarket said.
Gmarket had been competing with its smaller rival Internet Auction Co., eBay's
South Korean unit. Gmarket's sales reached 3.98 trillion won last year, compared
with 3.1 trillion won for Internet Auction.
The two companies accounted for about 90 percent of the on-line open market in
South Korea, with each company claiming to have more than 15 million registered
users.
EBay announced earlier this month that it had secured as much as a 67 percent
stake in Gmarket, offering some $1.2 billion in the deal, which would make the
U.S. online auctioneer a dominant player in South Korea, one of the world's most
wired nations.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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