Kakao Reports Record Q3 Earnings, Driven by AI Integration and KakaoTalk Revamp
SEOUL, November 7, 2025 - Kakao today announced its highest-ever quarterly performance, with sales reaching 2.0866 trillion won and operating profit of 208 billion won in the third quarter of 2025. This marks the first time in four years Kakao’s operating profit ratio has reached 10%. The company attributes its success to strategic AI integration and a recent overhaul of its flagship messaging app, KakaoTalk.
Platform division sales increased 12% year-over-year to 1.0598 trillion won, while content division sales rose 5% to 1.0267 trillion won. Operating profit saw a critically important 59% increase compared to the same period last year.
A key driver of this growth is the revitalization of KakaoTalk, following recent reforms. Average daily stay time on the app has increased from 24 minutes to nearly 26 minutes post-reform, with a more than 10% increase observed in the Friends and Now tabs.
Kakao’s recently launched ‘ChatGPT for Kakao’ has already surpassed 2 million users in just 10 days, with average daily active users spending approximately 4 minutes within the service. Kakao leadership views this as evidence of KakaoTalk evolving beyond simple messaging, towards a platform for exploration and search.
Looking ahead, Kakao plans to further enhance KakaoTalk with a strengthened customized folder function in the chat tab and the launch of ‘Kanana Search’ next year. The company is also actively expanding its open agent ecosystem, anticipating the participation of diverse industry partners in its AI ecosystem beginning in 2026.
“We plan to actively expand the open agent ecosystem to quickly expand the participation of partners of various sizes,” stated Kakao CEO Chung Shin-ah during a conference call. “We expect to be able to show businesses representing each industry participating one by one in the AI ecosystem created by Kakao starting next year.”
