On the 6th, Kakao announced that its consolidated revenue for the second quarter of this year reached 2.985 trillion won, with an operating profit of 277 billion won. This represents a 9% increase in revenue and a 36% increase in operating profit compared to the same period last year. Both revenue and operating profit are record highs on a quarterly basis. Operating expenses amounted to 1.8214 trillion won, up 6% from the same period last year.
Revenue from the platform segment reached 1.2303 trillion won, a 17% increase compared to the same period last year. Of this, Talk Biz revenue was 643.2 billion won, up 12% from the same period last year. Talk Biz advertising and subscription revenue totaled 399.9 billion won, a 14% increase. Business message revenue grew by 20%, driven by demand for financial industry advertisers. Display ads utilizing KakaoTalk pages grew by 28%, fueled by increased user activity and successful new product launches.
Talk Biz commerce revenue from services such as Gift-giving and Talk Deals reached 243.2 billion won, a 10% increase compared to the same period last year. The transaction value was 2.7 trillion won, up 9% from the same period. Notably, self-purchase transactions within Gift-giving increased by 39% year-on-year, driving growth.
Other platform segment revenue, comprising Mobility and Pay, reached 587 billion won, a 22% increase compared to the same period last year. In Mobility, both existing businesses and last-mile logistics operations performed well. In Pay, financial revenue saw significant growth, while payment and platform services also recorded double-digit growth rates, achieving record quarterly revenue and operating profit.
Revenue from the content segment reached 868.2 billion won, a 1% increase compared to the same period last year. Music revenue grew by 8% to 558.4 billion won, driven by expanded performances of major IPs (intellectual property). Media revenue increased by 5% to 99.1 billion won due to an increase in the number of works. Story revenue was 210.7 billion won.
Kakao classified Kakao Games, which is excluded from consolidated results, as discontinued operations. As a result, last year's second-quarter revenue and operating profit were retrospectively revised to 1.9175 trillion won and 203.9 billion won, respectively. However, the growth rates for today's provisional announcement of revenue and operating profit were calculated based on last year's second-quarter figures excluding discontinued operations. Under this standard, revenue and operating profit increased by 3.5% and 49.0%, respectively.
Kakao plans to sequentially launch agentic AI services such as ordering, reservation, and payment to establish them as new growth engines. It also intends to actively utilize the open platform 'PlayMCP' based on MCP to expand its ecosystem.
Jeong Sin-a (CEO) stated, "Competitiveness in the era of agentic AI does not lie solely in creating superior models but in understanding user context and intent and connecting them to actual actions." He added, "Based on KakaoTalk as a user touchpoint and the technology and service ecosystems accumulated over time, we will accelerate the arrival of the agentic AI era."
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