[Courtesy of Kakao]
Kakao Corp., South Korea's leading messaging app operator, posted an almost 400 percent increase in first-quarter net profit, helped by brisk sales in its contents business including mobile games and music.
On a consolidated basis, net profit soared 397 percent on-year to 54.5 billion won (48.1 million US dollars) in the January-March period, the company said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit soared 81.8 percent to 38.3 billion on sales of 443.8 billion won, up 83 percent.
The profit reflected earnings in Melon, the music streaming label of Loen Entertainment acquired by Kakao last year. Melon boosted Kakao's first-quarter sales in contents platform by 142 percent on-year to 221.8 billion won. Sales in mobile games increased 14 percent to 80.3 billion won.
Kakao's IPO plan has attracted attention from foreign and domestic investors. The company has spun off mobile content, payment service, and artificial intelligence businesses as subsidiaries as its diversified portfolio covers online-to-offline (O2O) business and car-hailing app and chauffeur services.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
