Kakao's sales reached 1.25 trillion won! The first quarter achieved the highest performance in history

In the first quarter of this year , Kakao set a new record high due to the rapid growth of new businesses such as mobile and financial technology, as well as the promotion of its main Kakao T alk business .

Kakao announced on the 6th that its sales in the first quarter of this year reached 1.258 trillion won and its operating profit reached 1.575 trillion won, an increase of 45% and 79% respectively compared with last year, setting a record high.

While most businesses showed a balanced growth trend, sales of new business units including mobility and payment (189.8 billion won) increased by 89% compared to the same period last year, showing the highest growth trend.

Kakao Pay transaction volume also grew 58 percent to 22 trillion won in the first quarter . Kakao Mobility's taxi service hit an all-time high in daily call levels, with the number of affiliated taxis increasing to 21,000.

"Most of the new businesses are generating sustained operating profits or appear to be very close to turning a corner," the chief deputy general manager said .

As a major department, Kakao   Sales at Talkbiz, a Talk-related business, rose 2% from the previous quarter and 61% from the same period last year to 366.1 billion won.   Sales of Talk ads grew 59% despite being in the off-season, and sales of shopping services such as gift giving also grew significantly.

Vice President Pei on the acquisition of fashion platform Zig   Zag said: "Competing platforms are also an area where they have not yet achieved much results. If they can make good use of Kakao's platform and technical strength, they can quickly seize the market."

In addition, sales of platform departments including the portal department (117.5 billion won) increased by 51% compared with the same period last year to 668.8 billion won.

Together with the content platform, the two pillars of the business, it also grew 38% from last year to 589.2 billion won.

Paid content sales increased 7% from the previous quarter and 80% from the same period last year to 174.7 billion won, thanks to the growth of global transactions such as webtoons and web novels .

Sales in the intellectual property (IP) business and other divisions rose 7% month-on-month and 55% year-on-year to 127.4 billion won, thanks to growth in Kakao Entertainment's video content sales and strong music releases.

Game sales decreased by 7% from the previous quarter and increased by 35% from the same period last year to 130.3 billion won; music sales decreased by 3% from the previous quarter and increased by 4% from the same period last year to 156.8 billion won.

Operating expenses increased 41% year-on-year to 140 million won.

"There is still room for operating profit margin to improve significantly compared to now," said co-CEO Yeo Min-soo. In order to increase the growth rate this year, Kakao is expected to execute the budget decisively and flexibly and decide the scale of operating profit based on the strategic situation.

Sales

Kakao

First Quarter