Home > Business > Industry

Kakao's Q2 net profit soars 97% on platform growth, equity gains

Published: 07 Aug. 2025, 12:17 Updated: 07 Aug. 2025, 14:33

The Kakao logo is seen at its Pangyo offices in Seongnam, Gyeonggi. [NEWS1]

Korean tech giant Kakao said Thursday its second-quarter net profit nearly doubled from a year earlier, driven by robust growth in its platform business and increased equity gains.

In the three months ended June 30, net profit jumped 97 percent to 171.82 billion won ($124 million) from 87.15 billion won in the same period last year, the company said in a press release.

"The strong bottom line was supported by higher advertising revenue, increased e-commerce sales and equity gains from financial platform Kakao Pay and mobility unit Kakao Mobility," a company spokesperson said.

Operating profit climbed 39 percent to 185.93 billion won from 133.96 billion won during the cited period. Sales rose 1.2 percent to 2.028 trillion won from 2.005 trillion won.

Sales from Kakao's core platform business, including its mobile messenger KakaoTalk, grew 10 percent on-year to 1.055 trillion won, backed by rising advertisement and transaction-based revenue.

However, revenue from the content division fell 7 percent to 973.1 billion won, weighed down by weak performance in the gaming segment.

Kakao said it is preparing a major overhaul of KakaoTalk and plans to launch a series of services powered by AI in the second half to make AI more accessible to the general public.

The company plans to introduce its new AI assistant, Kanana, as well as another AI service, in collaboration with OpenAI later this year.

In February, Kakao announced a partnership with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT into its new AI offerings, joining a global alliance led by the U.S.-based AI leader amid intensifying competition in the sector.

"Beyond the KakaoTalk revamp, we aim to build the foundation for an expanded AI ecosystem — spanning infrastructure and language models," Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a said in the release.

For the first half of the year, Kakao's net income more than doubled to 372.15 billion won from 154.82 billion won a year earlier.

Yonhap