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(ATTN: ADDS details from conference call in paras 8-14)
SEOUL, May 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korean internet tech giant Kakao Corp. said Thursday its net profit rose from a year earlier, driven by growth from its flagship platform business.
The Korean tech giant posted 226.8 billion won (US$156.8 million) of net profit in the first quarter, up a solid 13.2 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Operating profit jumped 66 percent on-year to 211.4 billion won in the January-March period. Sales were also up 11 percent from the previous year to 1.94 trillion won.
Kakao said its operating profit and sales figure were the highest for any first quarter.
The company's flagship platform division, which includes its ride-hailing service and the Kakao Pay mobile payment service, generated 1.2 trillion won in sales, up 16 percent from a year earlier.
Sales from its content business posted a slight 5 percent increase to 759.4 billion won.
When asked of its second quarter outlook, Kakao said it expects the upward momentum in its platform business to continue on. But it noted that contribution from its content business could be limited due to increased marketing expenses.
Kakao Corp.'s CEO Chung Shin-a gives a presentation at a conference held in Gyeonggi Province, south of Seoul, in this file photo taken Sept. 23, 2025, and provided by the company. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
During an earnings call, Kakao's CEO Chung Shin-a said the company plans to scale-up its agentic commerce, or artificial intelligence (AI) agent-assisted shopping, in the second half of the year.
"We are preparing with major vertical players, a proactive, end-to-end agent service that connects from search to payment," Chung said.
The tech giant has been integrating its homegrown AI agent, Kanana, with shopping functions inside its messenger app, Kakao Talk, since last month.
"Users will be able to experience the early stage of Kakao's agent commerce before the next earnings release announcement," she added.
The growth momentum of other Kanana-integrated services on the messenger app was also strong, with some 80 percent of users saying they were satisfied with Kanana in Kakao Talk's answer quality, she claimed.
Kanana in Kakao Talk is an on-device AI service that provides autonomous services, such as daily scheduling, conversation summarization, web searches and reservations.
The company is set to unveil an updated version of its native AI, Kanana 2.5, soon.
"It is encouraging that the company made quantitative growth in the first quarter by strengthening our core competitiveness," Chung said, adding Kakao plans to build on the momentum and begin its transformation into an "agentic AI platform."
fairydust@yna.co.kr
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