This photo, provided by Kakao IX shows its character store in Seoul. Kakao IX in a character licensing arm under South Korea’s top mobile messenger operator Kakao Corp.
SEOUL, Aug. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said Thursday its second-quarter net profit jumped nearly five times from a year earlier on the back of robust growth of its e-commerce and contents services based on its messenger platform.
Net profit reached 145.2 billion won (US$122.2 million) in the April-June period on a consolidated basis, compared with 31 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Sales jumped by 39 percent on-year to reach a quarterly high of 952.9 billion won over the cited period, and its operating income rose 141.7 percent on-year to a quarterly high of 97.8 billion won over the cited period, it said.
The company posted record-high operating income for the sixth consecutive quarter.
Kakao said it enjoyed brisk performance in both its platform and e-commerce businesses.
“Global KakaoTalk usage surpassed 52 million. In the country, the average number of users jumped by 9 percent on-year and the total amount of messaging jumped by 34 percent on-year during the period,” Yeo Min-soo, co-CEO of Kakao, said in a conference call.
Kakao said messaging through KakaoTalk surged following the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people stayed home and avoided face-to-face contact, leading to increased content usage and online shopping.
Kakao said the revenue from its platform business surged by 51 percent on-year to 492.7 billion won over the cited period thanks to the steady growth of Biz Message and Talk Biz.
Yeo said its platform businesses based on KakaoTalk are expected to show brisk performance down the road. At Talk Biz Board, individual sellers can sell their products through a platform connected to KakaoTalk.
Revenue from Talk Biz surged 79 percent on-year to 248.4 billion won during the second quarter, the company said.
Revenue from the content business also expanded by 13 percent on-year to 460.2 billion won.
Revenue from paid content, such as webtoons, skyrocketed 46 percent on-year to 119 billion won during the quarter, the company said.
Sales from game contents also increased 9 percent on-year to 107.5 billion won, it said.
(Yonhap)
