Kakao Corp., South Korea’s online giant operating the country’s leading messenger app Kakao Talk, is ascending fast on the market cap rank as the biggest winner from virus-dominated environment.

Market capitalization of Kakao reached 23.33 trillion won ($18.75 billion) on Monday, surpassing that of LG Household & Healthcare. It ranked eighth on the country’s main Kospi market excluding preferred stocks of top-cap Samsung Electronics. Kakao shares rose 8.5 percent to finish at 268,000 won on Monday.

It passed ahead of LG Household after elbowing out Hyundai Motor on Friday.

Kakao shares have gained 30 percent over the past three months, boosted by the record earnings in the first quarter and investors’ bet for tech companies to emerge from the pandemic stronger from changes in consumer behavior.

During the January to March period, Kakao’s operating profit on a consolidated basis soared 218.9 percent from a year ago to 88.2 billion won, with revenue up 22.9 percent to 868.4 billion won. Both results were all-time high on a quarterly basis.

By Kim Gyu-sik and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]