[비즈한국] Naver035420 and Kakao035720 both recorded their highest annual revenues in history last year. Following Naver's milestone of entering the 12 trillion won annual revenue era, Kakao successfully restored its profitability through structural improvements. During their respective earnings conference calls, both companies identified the practical monetization of artificial intelligence (AI) services as their primary management theme for this year and unveiled specific AI strategic roadmaps.
AI Expansion Through 'Kanana', XR Cooperation, and More
In a regulatory filing on the 12th, Kakao announced that it recorded consolidated revenue of 8.0991 trillion won and an operating profit of 732 billion won for 2025. This marks a 3% increase in revenue and a 48% increase in operating profit year-over-year, both the highest figures since the company's founding. The fourth-quarter operating profit surged 169.7% year-over-year to 203.4 billion won.
During the conference call, the strengthening of TalkBiz advertising and commerce, along with the advancement of AI services, were cited as key growth engines. Kakao CEO 정신아 (Chung Shin-a) noted that TalkBiz advertising still has significant growth potential, highlighting that business messages, in particular, emerged as the largest revenue source within TalkBiz last year. Focusing on core businesses and improving efficiency also proved effective. Since CEO Chung took office, Kakao has focused on structural reorganization, reducing the number of subsidiaries from 132 to 94 by the end of last year. Consequently, platform revenue grew 11% year-over-year, driving overall performance. Specifically, 'TalkBiz' revenue, which includes KakaoTalk advertising and commerce, grew 13% to the 2.5 trillion won range.
Kakao set a management goal of achieving over 10% annual consolidated revenue growth and a 10% operating profit margin this year. CEO Chung emphasized that "2026 will be the year Kakao re-enters a full-scale growth phase," serving as a starting point for simultaneous improvements in both growth and profitability.
Progress is also expected in AI strategy. CEO Chung announced plans for a strategic partnership with Google. The plan involves co-developing an interface for AI glasses based on Android XR (Extended Reality). The core objective is to implement messaging and calling features in a hands-free manner. For infrastructure efficiency, the company also mentioned that it is discussing the operation of Google's AI-specialized TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) cloud.
The on-device AI agent service 'Kanana in KakaoTalk' will conclude its Closed Beta Service (CBT) and be officially launched. It is scheduled to be released in the first quarter, with plans to build an 'Agentic AI' ecosystem in the first half of the year in cooperation with global commerce players, where AI directly assists with shopping and payments.
26% Growth in Commerce... 'N-Delivery' and Global B2B Strategy in Parallel
In its annual earnings report released on the 6th, Naver recorded 12.035 trillion won in annual revenue and 2.2081 trillion won in operating profit, breaking the 12 trillion won annual revenue mark for the first time. The commerce division saw revenue grow 26.2% year-over-year to 3.6884 trillion won. Fourth-quarter performance also continued its upward trend compared to the same period last year, with 3.1951 trillion won in revenue and 610.6 billion won in operating profit.
Naver's conference call also centered on strategies to expand AI-integrated services. CEO 최수연 (Choi Soo-yeon) stated, "We plan to officially launch our Shopping AI agent at the end of February." Starting with this, the company plans to expand its scope to places, travel, finance, and more. It is also pushing to advance AI-based search and information summarization features, such as doubling the coverage of 'AI Briefing' by the end of the year.
'Strengthening delivery competitiveness' was cited as the top priority. The company plans to expand the coverage of its 3P (third-party logistics)-centered 'N-Delivery' to 25% this year, 35% next year, and over 50% within three years. CEO Choi emphasized, "As user perception regarding platform reliability in the e-commerce market has recently increased, we are seeing meaningful additional inflows to Naver," adding that the goal is to grow the number of active membership users by more than 20% this year.
Global technological cooperation is also becoming more concrete. Naver is utilizing NVIDIA's 'Omniverse' platform to conduct digital twin projects in global markets such as Saudi Arabia. This year, the company plans to begin full-scale Proof of Concept (PoC) work for outdoor robot delivery. Regardless of the policy environment such as state-led AI projects, the company's policy is to maintain its B2B strategy and profitability stance for the Sovereign AI market.
Both companies emphasized both the sustainability of growth and the enhancement of shareholder value. Kakao set a goal of over 10% annual revenue growth and a 10% operating profit margin, while Naver is reorganizing its business units starting from the first quarter of this year into Platform, Financial, and Global Challenge (C2C, Content, Enterprise) categories to clearly reflect its core businesses and new opportunities.
Shareholder return policies will also be strengthened. Kakao decided to pay a cash dividend of 75 won per common share, totaling 33 billion won. Naver is implementing its return plan based on free cash flow (FCF) alongside a dividend of 393.6 billion won.