![\"null](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260821.4c2c8a8643d049be80ba1e4fca9444f8_P1.png\"\/ "\\"Kakao")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kakao said on the 21st that its board of directors met and resolved to split the company through a spin-off into a newly established entity, “Kakao AI,” which will handle the AI business, and a surviving entity, “Kakao X.”<\/p>\n
The split ratio was set at 0.36 for Kakao AI and 0.64 for Kakao X, based on net asset book value. As it is a spin-off, existing shareholders will each be allotted shares in Kakao AI and Kakao X according to their holdings.<\/p>\n
Kakao (035720) plans to complete the split on January 1, 2027, following an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on December 17, and to pursue the relisting of Kakao AI and the changed listing of Kakao X on January 27, 2027. The detailed schedule may change depending on consultations with relevant institutions and related procedures.<\/p>\n
According to Kakao, this spin-off is a decision to increase decision-making speed in response to the AI era and to build an efficient capital allocation system for each business. Kakao grew rapidly by leading the mobile era, but as its business scale expanded and its structure became more complex, it judged that there were limits to swiftly executing strategies for businesses at different growth stages under a single decision-making system.<\/p>\n
Accordingly, over the past two years or so, Kakao has streamlined its governance around growth businesses, including by winding down non-core businesses and significantly reducing the number of affiliates. The industry views this split as a full-fledged starting point that will connect the structural realignment so far to growth in the AI era.<\/p>\n
![\"null](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260821.4402e595b7f745e085282a64e9b05f2a_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Kakao")
<\/p>\n
Through this split, Kakao intends to enable the two entities to focus on their intrinsic growth tasks and to establish a structure in which the value of each business is transparently and appropriately assessed by the market. Kakao AI will clearly separate the role of supporting and managing subsidiary growth to Kakao X, and plans to rapidly expand AI services centered on KakaoTalk and AI that the public can experience in daily life. Kakao X will take on the role of reawakening Kakao’s intrinsic innovation DNA to discover and nurture new growth axes such as a second Kakao Bank, Kakao Pay, or Kakao Mobility.<\/p>\n
After the split, Kakao will grow the two companies into “two engines” that take on different growth axes in the AI era.<\/p>\n
Kakao AI will grow into an “AI Core Company” that organically connects AI, advertising, and commerce centered on KakaoTalk to create differentiated user experiences and revenue models for the agentic AI era. Current Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a has been designated as its head. Operating subsidiaries such as DK Techin and K&Works will be included under Kakao AI.<\/p>\n
Kakao AI will redesign, for the AI era, the relationships, conversations, and service-connection capabilities that KakaoTalk has built up over the past 15 years. The plan is to evolve it beyond a messenger that is the same for everyone into an “Agentic AI Interface” that best understands the intent and context of each of some 50 million users. When a user conveys what they want through a message, a personalized AI agent connects the necessary services and specialized agents to complete the desired outcome \u2014 from search and recommendation to purchase and payment. Through this, it plans to expand each user’s capabilities and possibilities.<\/p>\n
Kakao AI plans to secure more than 20 million daily active AI users by 2030 and to increase platform dwell time by more than 50%. It also aims to expand new revenue models such as AI advertising, agentic commerce, and subscriptions, leading annual average revenue growth of around 20% through 2030 and achieving Kakao AI revenue of more than 6 trillion won. AI revenue is expected to expand to a double-digit share of Kakao AI’s total revenue by 2028 and to surpass 1 trillion won by 2030.<\/p>\n
Kakao X, as a “future value investment company,” will stably grow existing core business groups such as techfin (Kakao Bank, Kakao Pay, Kakao Pay Securities), content (Kakao Entertainment, SM Entertainment, Kakao Piccoma), and mobility (Kakao Mobility), while at the same time securing future growth drivers through the discovery of new businesses and investment in innovative companies. Kim Do-young, CEO of Kakao Investment and head of the group investment strategy office at the Kakao CA Council, has been designated as its head.<\/p>\n
Kakao X plans to find markets at the intersection of technology and daily life that have not yet changed sufficiently, create new standards in a Kakao-like way, and nurture growth businesses that follow past success cases. Virtual assets, physical AI, and global fandom are among the main areas under review.<\/p>\n
To this end, Kakao X plans to utilize about 2.3 trillion won raised through the liquidation of its holdings and about 4.1 trillion won in investment resources held by its subsidiaries. Based on the growth of core businesses and the results of new investments, it aims to achieve an annual average growth rate of around 13.3% in the revenue of its major businesses by 2030 and to build a growth foundation with revenue of more than 10 trillion won. Through this, it intends to establish a virtuous cycle of capital in which investment results lead to shareholder returns and reinvestment, befitting the identity of a future value investment company.<\/p>\n
Kakao expects that once the performance and financial information of each company accumulate independently after the split, the value of each business will be more clearly assessed. As of this month, based on the average SOTP (sum-of-the-parts valuation) consensus of research centers at domestic and overseas securities firms, the Kakao group’s potential value is 34.2 trillion won. This is about 17.4 trillion won higher than Kakao’s average market capitalization of 16.8 trillion won over the past three months.<\/p>\n
Kakao AI and Kakao X will form boards of directors optimized for the nature of each business to enhance expertise and decision-making efficiency. After the split, the two companies plan to regularly disclose key indicators such as revenue, profitability, investment execution, and shareholder returns, along with capital allocation principles, and to expand domestic and overseas investor relations events and shareholder communication programs.<\/p>\n
Measures to enhance shareholder value will also be pursued. Kakao AI will use 20% to 35% of its separate adjusted free cash flow (FCF) as its basic shareholder-return resource. Kakao X presented a shareholder-return policy that uses 30% of subsidiary dividends and 30% of investment gains as shareholder-return resources. It also announced a plan to buy back and cancel 300 billion won worth of treasury shares, using recent gains from the sale of Dunamu.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Kakao’s position is that it will stably maintain employment, working conditions, welfare benefits, and business continuity even after the split. The services, businesses, personnel, assets, technologies, and models transferred to Kakao AI will be operated based on the continuity of existing operations.<\/p>\n
Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a said, “This split is a decision for Kakao to transform into a structure of speed and responsibility suited to the AI era,” adding, “We will work so that Kakao AI and Kakao X can establish strategies and capital allocation principles suited to their respective business characteristics, execute them faster, and communicate their results transparently with the market.”<\/p>\n
Kakao founder Kim Beom-su said, “In the mobile era, Kakao was the first to leap onto untraveled paths, creating innovation and changing users’ daily lives,” adding, “As the AI era demands agility on a whole different level, we will redesign our growth structure with the two engines of Kakao AI and Kakao X, and lend our strength so that the results return to shareholders, users, and crew members alike.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kakao said on the 21st that its board of directors met and resolved to split the company through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622],"tags":[4560,827,19889,65326,65328,831,65673,732,65672],"class_list":["post-128465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kakao","tag-agentic-ai","tag-kakao","tag-kakao-ai","tag-kakao-spin-off","tag-kakao-x","tag-kakaotalk","tag-korea-tech-restructuring","tag-shareholder-returns","tag-shin-jung-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}