KB Securities assessed on the 8th that Kakao is expected to benefit from the government’s strong support measures for the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. It maintained its investment opinion of 'buy' and raised the target price from the previous 55,000 won to 80,000 won, an increase of 45.5%. Kakao's closing price the previous day was 60,100 won.
President Lee Jae-myung has pledged to establish a state-led AI platform that enables all citizens to access high-performance AI for free, aiming for an 'AI for everyone' era.
Lee Sun-hwa, a researcher at KB Securities, noted, 'Due to the government's economic stimulus policies and strong support measures for the AI industry, benefits are expected in advertising and commerce businesses as well as in AI and payment services.' She analyzed, 'In particular, if the won stablecoin is introduced, Kakao, along with its affiliates Kakao Pay, Kakao Securities, KakaoBank, and others, could secure all areas of stablecoin from issuance to platform, payment, custody, and distribution.'
She added, 'Kakao is expected to launch a Korean-style super AI agent platform in collaboration with OpenAI within the year,' and described it as 'a corporation that is expected to showcase AI assistant capabilities in the near future.'
With Kakao having its own ecosystem that includes commerce, fintech, content, mobility, healthcare, and the messenger 'Kakao Talk' used by the entire nation, this researcher believes that a superior Korean-style super AI agent platform with excellent reasoning capabilities and autonomy is to be expected if Kakao's lifestyle services are integrated with the OpenAI model.
Kakao's announcement of a major overhaul of Kakao Talk in the second half of the year is also one of the points of anticipation. Kakao plans to introduce a 'Discover' area in the third tab of Kakao Talk to increase floating traffic and content consumption, thereby expanding user engagement.
The researcher stated, 'With the major overhaul of Kakao Talk in the second half of the year, a recovery in advertising revenue due to inventory expansion is anticipated,' adding, 'After the 'Discover' service becomes established in the fourth quarter, advertising revenue growth is projected to recover to double digits.'
Meanwhile, Kakao's consolidated revenue for the second quarter is anticipated to be 1.9606 trillion won, with an operating profit of 126.8 billion won.