Kakao's revenue growth has decelerated every year since 2021, from 45.1% to 15.0%, 11.1%, 4.1% and 3.0% in FY2025.
Kakao's intangible assets peaked at ₩6,347.8bn at the end of FY2021 and stood at ₩3,642.9bn at 30 June 2026, a decline of 43%.
Kakao's board approved a horizontal split on 21 August 2026, creating Kakao X and Kakao AI, and the shares were briefly halted from trading.
Kakao Corp. (035720) and its consortium won selection for South Korea's AI for Everyone service project, Dailian reported Friday.
A healthcare unit of Kakao Corp. (035720) received a silver sustainability rating from EcoVadis, Dailian reported Friday.
The Korea Recycling Deposit Management Centre is giving away 50,000 free emoticon sets through KakaoTalk.
Kakao (035720) will split its KakaoTalk platform business into a separately listed company, KakaoAI, and rename the surviving investment company Kakao X, the board resolved on 21 August, according to filings made that day.
| Period | 035720 | KOSPI | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 week | -1.8% | -1.5% | -0.3% |
| 1 month | -4.5% | +5.2% | -9.6% |
| 3 months | -13.8% | -22.6% | +8.8% |
| 6 months | -23.1% | +31.3% | -54.3% |
| Year to date | -39.8% | +58.7% | -98.5% |
| 1 year | -38.1% | +108.9% | -147.0% |
Closed at 9% of the way from its 52-week low (₩33,150) to its 52-week high (₩67,700).
**Response to an Exchange Inquiry Regarding a Market Rumor or Press Report (Undetermined)** **1. Title** Kakao Corp.'s response to an exchange inquiry regarding press reports that its subsidiary Kakao Mobility Corp. is pursuing a US IPO of around US$1 billion. **2. Contents** Kakao Mobility, a subsidiary of the Company, has established a Shareholder Value Enhancement Committee in which TPG, its second-largest shareholder, holds a majority of the seats. The Committee is reviewing a number of options for the financial investor to realize its investment, and among the options under review is an ADR backed solely by the Kakao Mobility shares held by TPG. As one of those options, the Committee is also reviewing an ADR listing based solely on the Kakao Mobility shares held by TPG, and on July 2, 2026 a registration statement relating to a listed public offering of American Depositary Receipts (Form F-1) was submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on a confidential basis (confidential submission). The Company's board of directors has made no decision on this matter. The Company intends to conduct the necessary review while complying with shareholder-consent provisions including Article 78-2 (Special Provisions on the Listing of Subsidiaries and Similar Entities), Paragraph 1, Item 4 of the KOSPI Market Listing Regulations, and giving the highest priority to the protection of shareholders. Nothing has been finalized to date, including the size of the offering. The Company will re-disclose either when specific details are finalized or within one month. (Disclosure Officer) CFO Shin Jong-hwan * This disclosure is made in response to the Exchange's inquiry issued on August 20, 2026 at 10:40 (KST). **3. Scheduled re-disclosure date** September 18, 2026 --- **Appendix — the Exchange inquiry that triggered this response (receipt no. 20260820800119)** **Inquiry Regarding a Market Rumor or Press Report** Inquiry to Kakao Corp. regarding press reports that its subsidiary Kakao Mobility Corp. is pursuing a US IPO of around US$1 billion. **1. Content of the inquiry** Whether it is true that the subsidiary Kakao Mobility Corp. is pursuing a US IPO of around US$1 billion, and the specific details thereof. **2. Response deadline** August 20, 2026, 18:00 (KST) **3. Other material information relevant to investment decisions** — --- *Translator's notes.* (1) The Korean text uses two slightly different formulations in the same paragraph: an ADR "담보로 한" (literally "collateralized by") and an ADR listing "기초로 한" ("based on") TPG's shares. Both are rendered above as backed by / based on; the filing does not reconcile the two phrasings. (2) "조회공시 요구" is a formal demand by the Korea Exchange that a listed company confirm or deny a market rumor or press report by a stated deadline; a company's answer may be filed as "확정" (determined) or "미확정" (undetermined). This one is filed as undetermined. (3) DART, Korea's electronic disclosure system, publishes a receipt date but not a receipt time for this filing. What the documents establish is that the response was filed on August 20, 2026 (KST) somewhere between the Exchange's 10:40 inquiry and the 18:00 deadline. The `filed_at` field on this record is set to 2026-08-20T10:40+09:00 — the documented lower bound of that window, not a published filing time.
Kakao runs KakaoTalk, the messaging app almost every South Korean uses daily, and has spent a decade building businesses on top of that attention: advertising and commerce inside the chat app, a taxi-hailing and navigation service, a music and web-comics arm, a mobile game publisher, and stakes in the separately listed internet bank KakaoBank and payments company KakaoPay. That expansion was funded by listing subsidiaries and buying companies, which left the group sprawling and drew regulatory and political criticism over how much of Korean daily life one platform touches. Since 2024 the company has been retrenching: selling or closing non-core units, cutting the number of affiliates, and refocusing on advertising, commerce and artificial intelligence. For a US reader the closest analogue is a domestic messaging platform with the ambitions of a conglomerate, now unwinding some of them.
| Sector | Internet | Employees | |
| Market | KOSPI | Founded | |
| Korean name | 카카오 | Head office |
| Symbol | Last Price |
|---|---|
| 035420NAVER Corporation | ₩213,500 +2.9% |
| 377300Kakao Pay Corp. | ₩47,300 +5.6% |
| 023590Daou Technology, Inc. | ₩38,300 -0.1% |
| 030190Nice Information Service | ₩16,250 +0.8% |
| 093320Kinx, Inc. | ₩136,600 +0.6% |