Kakao Achieves Record Q2 Results... Secures Resources for Agentic AI Investment (Comprehensive)

Sales Reach 2.0985 Trillion Won, Up 9% Year-on-Year
Operating Profit Jumps 36% to 277 Billion Won as Platform and Advertising Drive Growth
"Accelerating the Era of AI Agent Utilization"

Kakao achieved its highest-ever quarterly performance in the second quarter of this year. Having steadily increased investment in AI fields such as large language models (LLMs) and agentic artificial intelligence (AI), Kakao plans to continue these investments based on its robust financial results.

On August 6, Kakao announced that on a consolidated basis for the second quarter of this year, it recorded sales of 2.0985 trillion won and operating profit of 277 billion won. Compared to the same period last year, sales increased by 9%, and operating profit rose by 36%. Both sales and operating profit reached the highest figures ever for a single quarter. The operating margin for the second quarter stood at 13%, an improvement of about 3 percentage points from a year earlier. Operating expenses increased by 6% year-on-year to 1.8214 trillion won.

Kakao Pangyo Ajit, Seongnam, Gyeonggi. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

Last year, Kakao sold Kakao Healthcare to the CHA Bio Group, and this year it transferred management rights of Kakao Games to LY Corporation (LINE Yahoo). As a result, the second quarter's growth rates were calculated based on results that reflected the profit and loss from Kakao Games and Kakao Healthcare as discontinued operations. In the same period last year, with discontinued operations included, sales were 1.9175 trillion won and operating profit was 203.9 billion won.

Breaking down performance by business segment, sales in the platform division for the second quarter reached 1.2303 trillion won, an increase of 17% compared to a year ago. Within the platform business, sales from Talk Biz grew by 12% to 643.2 billion won. Of these, Talk Biz advertising and subscription sales increased by 14% to 399.9 billion won. Business message sales grew by 20%, driven by strong demand from financial sector advertisers, while display advertising on KakaoTalk increased by 28%, helped by increased user engagement and new ad product results.

Commerce sectors within Talk Biz, such as gift-giving and Tokdeal, also continued to grow. The integrated transaction volume for the second quarter was 2.7 trillion won, a 9% increase over the same period last year, while Talk Biz commerce sales grew by 10% to 243.2 billion won. Transaction volume for the "gift-to-myself" (self-purchased gifts) service also surged by 39%.

Sales for other platform businesses, including Mobility and Pay, reached 587 billion won—an increase of 22%. Mobility performed well in both its existing business areas and last-mile logistics. Pay achieved record-high quarterly sales and operating profit, driven by substantial growth in financial revenues as well as double-digit growth rates in payment and platform services.

Sales in the content division for the second quarter reached 868.2 billion won, a 1% rise. Music revenue grew by 8% to 558.4 billion won, supported by the expansion of performances from major IPs. Media revenue rose by 5% year-on-year to 99.1 billion won, as the number of productions in progress increased. Story revenue was 210.7 billion won.

Kakao will continue to invest in AI fields throughout the second half of the year. The company is accelerating efforts to evolve KakaoTalk into an agentic AI platform, aiming to enable AI within KakaoTalk to handle orders, reservations, and payments on behalf of users. Through "ChatGPT for Kakao," Kakao’s AI agent "KakaoTools" is now being linked with both Kakao’s own services and external ones.

The company plans to enhance its corporate value by making AI a pillar of future growth and monetization. To this end, it is pursuing collaborations with partners in high-frequency areas such as commerce, reservations, travel, and payments. Kakao also aims to expand its ecosystem using "PlayMCP," its open platform based on the MCP (Model Context Protocol).

Shin-Ah Jung, CEO of Kakao, stated, "Competitiveness in the era of agentic AI is not simply about developing outstanding models, but about understanding user context and intent and connecting them to real-world actions. Kakao will leverage the daily user contact point that is KakaoTalk and our accumulated technology and service ecosystem to usher in an era where everyone can seamlessly utilize their own AI agent."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.