NewsPress Release
August 09, 2018
Kakao Reports Second Quarter Results
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Kakao, the operator of Korea’s dominant mobile messaging app Kakao Talk, today announced consolidated financial results for its fiscal 2018 second quarter ended on June 30. The Company posted record quarterly sales of KRW (hereinafter ‘won’) 588.9 billion, an increase of 26 percent from the year-ago quarter, and the quarterly operating profit of 27.6 billion won, down 38 percent over the comparable period of last year.
Thanks to the double-digit quarterly sales growth across all business sectors including Advertising, Content and Others, Kakao’s second quarter sales hit an all-time record.
For the three months ended on June 30, the Advertising sector’s sales grew 10 percent to 166.4 billion won over the same period last year on the back of strong sales growth of Info Talk and Cash Friends.
The Content sector sales for the second quarter also jumped 29 percent year-over-year to 302.8 billion won. To be more specific, the game content sales rose by 42 percent to a record 111.6 billion won, mainly thanks to the successful monetization of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The Music content sales also expanded by 11 percent year-over-year to 130.5 billion won thanks to the net addition of 130,000-plus paid subscribers to the music content of Melon, the nation’s top music streaming service. At the same time, the Other Content sector witnessed robust sales of 60.7 billion won, up 57 percent compared to the same period of the prior year thanks to effective promotion campaigns and its intellectual property investment for its web novel and comics services coming to a fruition.
The Others sector’s quarterly sales rose 45 percent year-over-year to 119.8 billion won, as a result of increasing sales contributions from commerce business, and from new businesses including Kakao Mobility and Kakao Pay.
Operating expenses for the April-June period stood at 561.3 billion won, up 16.3 billion won quarter-on-quarter and up 137.5 billion won year-on-year, which is attributable to a rise in marketing costs accrued by aggressive investments in new businesses; a surge in commission fees for Kakao Page and Melon; and an increase in labor costs in connection with new hires for new businesses and newly affiliated businesses.
As a result, Kakao recorded 27.6 billion won in operating profit and 4.7 percent in operating profit margin.
Kakao, posting a total of 1.144 trillion won sales for the first half of this year on the back of strong sales growth from major profitable businesses including Advertising and Games, seeks to maintain its focus on building its sales momentum.
To do so, Kakao plans to accelerate the sales of Advertisement business by replacing its all display ad platform with Kakao Moment, its new ad platform. For Games business as well, Kakao seeks to achieve continued sales growth with the launch of Kakao Friends’ IP-based new mobile games on the solid sales base of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Moreover, the Company will successfully wrap up the scheduled merger between Kakao and Kakao M on September 1, and will carefully nurture its prospective music and video affiliate into a leading global content company by acquiring competitive intellectual property rights and fostering content creation capabilities.
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About Kakao
Kakao, better known as South Korea's largest mobile messaging app operator, is an integrated mobile lifestyle platform company with services including mobile messaging (Kakao Talk), gaming (Kakao Games), music (Melon), e-mail (Daum Mail), search (Daum Search), news (Daum News), and more. With the mission of "Connect Everything", Kakao is dedicated to creating an ecosystem of connectivity where people can stay connected with family and friends by sharing what matters to them. For more, please visit at www.kakaocorp.com.
Press Contact
Jeff Kim
Communications Manager
jeff.kim@kakaocorp.com
+82-02-6718-2889
Thanks to the double-digit quarterly sales growth across all business sectors including Advertising, Content and Others, Kakao’s second quarter sales hit an all-time record.
For the three months ended on June 30, the Advertising sector’s sales grew 10 percent to 166.4 billion won over the same period last year on the back of strong sales growth of Info Talk and Cash Friends.
The Content sector sales for the second quarter also jumped 29 percent year-over-year to 302.8 billion won. To be more specific, the game content sales rose by 42 percent to a record 111.6 billion won, mainly thanks to the successful monetization of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The Music content sales also expanded by 11 percent year-over-year to 130.5 billion won thanks to the net addition of 130,000-plus paid subscribers to the music content of Melon, the nation’s top music streaming service. At the same time, the Other Content sector witnessed robust sales of 60.7 billion won, up 57 percent compared to the same period of the prior year thanks to effective promotion campaigns and its intellectual property investment for its web novel and comics services coming to a fruition.
The Others sector’s quarterly sales rose 45 percent year-over-year to 119.8 billion won, as a result of increasing sales contributions from commerce business, and from new businesses including Kakao Mobility and Kakao Pay.
Operating expenses for the April-June period stood at 561.3 billion won, up 16.3 billion won quarter-on-quarter and up 137.5 billion won year-on-year, which is attributable to a rise in marketing costs accrued by aggressive investments in new businesses; a surge in commission fees for Kakao Page and Melon; and an increase in labor costs in connection with new hires for new businesses and newly affiliated businesses.
As a result, Kakao recorded 27.6 billion won in operating profit and 4.7 percent in operating profit margin.
Kakao, posting a total of 1.144 trillion won sales for the first half of this year on the back of strong sales growth from major profitable businesses including Advertising and Games, seeks to maintain its focus on building its sales momentum.
To do so, Kakao plans to accelerate the sales of Advertisement business by replacing its all display ad platform with Kakao Moment, its new ad platform. For Games business as well, Kakao seeks to achieve continued sales growth with the launch of Kakao Friends’ IP-based new mobile games on the solid sales base of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Moreover, the Company will successfully wrap up the scheduled merger between Kakao and Kakao M on September 1, and will carefully nurture its prospective music and video affiliate into a leading global content company by acquiring competitive intellectual property rights and fostering content creation capabilities.
###
About Kakao
Kakao, better known as South Korea's largest mobile messaging app operator, is an integrated mobile lifestyle platform company with services including mobile messaging (Kakao Talk), gaming (Kakao Games), music (Melon), e-mail (Daum Mail), search (Daum Search), news (Daum News), and more. With the mission of "Connect Everything", Kakao is dedicated to creating an ecosystem of connectivity where people can stay connected with family and friends by sharing what matters to them. For more, please visit at www.kakaocorp.com.
Press Contact
Jeff Kim
Communications Manager
jeff.kim@kakaocorp.com
+82-02-6718-2889
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