Good morning. I am Eleanor from the IR team. Let us begin Kakao's third quarter 2021 earnings release conference call. With me today are CEO Mason Yeo and Chief Investment Officer Jae Bae. Please note that the earnings results are consolidated estimates under the KIFRS basis and are subject to change upon the auditor's review. Also, forward-looking estimates are based on assumptions, so actual results may differ from figures included in today's presentation. With that, let me invite Mason to run through key business highlights.
Good morning, this is Mason. Recent controversy around Kakao was an opportunity for us to revisit ourselves and go back to the important basics. I would like to reaffirm our commitment today to making a better world for all together with our partners, and we show that we have commitment to live up to our social responsibilities.
We will also connect Kakao's content ecosystem with the broader global market, be the front runner in next generation technologies, and underpinned by harmony between inclusive growth and innovation, we move up to greater heights. We now walk through major services and business results. KakaoTalk Wallet, launched last December, offered convenience of booking for COVID vaccines and storing vaccination certificates, reaching around 26 million subscribers as of end of October, achieving the year-end target ahead of the plan. Meanwhile, Kakao View, launched last August, allows anyone to create and curate content with one's own perspective, providing all an opportunity and a venue to develop an influential media outlet. As a result, in just three months, more than 20,000 channels and 250,000 content curation boards were made, and we see that the content ecosystem of the Talk platform is being gradually activated.
Next is on the update of the platform business. Q3 Talk Biz ad revenue, driven by sustained demand for Biz Board, Talk Channel, Sync and other ad products and business solutions, posted a growth of 42% year-over-year. Firstly, for Biz Board, not only advertisers seeking performance ads, but branding advertisers seeking to reach the entire population and be the mainstream drove revenue up 53% year-over-year. KakaoTalk Channel saw advertisers who adopted Sync rise 13,000, driving up number of channel friends and outbound messaging, which led to Q3 revenue increasing 64% year-over-year. Best practices of combining the Talk Channel message and the Sync spread, and we expect number of Sync adopting advertisers will expand to 15,000 until the year-end, which will help to sustain growth of Talk Channel messaging. Next is on the Talk Biz Commerce business.
Q3 GMV of Kakao Commerce, which include Gift, TalkStore and Makers, was up 45% year-over-year. For gifting, despite the high base effect, Q3 GMV was up 45% year-over-year. Global luxury brands and other premium delivery-based lineup were very well received by the users, which drove delivery-based gifting GMV up 70% year-over-year, growing its portion out of the total gift GMV to 40%, bringing meaningful growth in terms of ARPU. TalkStore, driven by steep growth from TalkDeal, Q3 GMV was up 49% year-over-year. This quarter, awareness measurement for TalkDeal improved with regular seasonal promotions for each of the theme categories, boosting number of first time buyers, which led to balanced growth of TalkStore GMV, monthly average buyers and ARPU. Next is on the mobility business. Q3 revenue for Kakao Mobility was impacted by rigorous social distancing, which led to 3% Q-o-Q growth.
However, with greater user convenience, there was sustained user inflow which led to around 30 million Kakao T platform users as of Q3. Also, with improved operational efficiency, Kakao T Blue fleet increased to 30,000 vehicles. As users and partners grow connected through Kakao T platform, Kakao Mobility will improve inefficiencies and entrenched practices of the industry and live up to its social responsibilities to lead the advancement of Korea's mobility market. Next is on KakaoPay. Q3 KakaoPay GMV was up 41% year-on-year to KRW 25.2 trillion. Q3 payment GMV was up 85% year-on-year, with growth evenly from online and offline cross-border and bill payment. For financial services, with Financial Consumer Protection Act taking effect in September, some of these services underwent changes.
With such proactive countering, KakaoPay solidified itself as a comprehensive financial platform, and with more than 127 partners, GMV was up 112% year-on-year. Also, a subsidiary, KakaoPay Securities, launched innovative MTS mobile trading services. Licensing process with the digital insurance company is also well underway. Just yesterday, KakaoPay successfully listed on Korea Exchange. We ask for your continued interest as KakaoPay, which began its journey with the value proposition of comfortable finance, develops into a company that bring financial innovation and protect consumers. Kakao and its affiliates will also cooperate along the way. Next is on the story business. Q3 GMV from the story platform, both domestic and global, was up 47% year-on-year to KRW 327.7 billion.
Firstly, Kakao Japan's Piccoma ranked global top six grossing app in Q3, and its GMV was up 52% year-on-year to KRW 197.1 billion, solidifying its position as a number one digital provider of comics in Japan. On top of active marketing to expand the user base, there were service enhancements spanning the mobile app to the web space, and as we focused on sourcing for the content library, there were double-digit growth from major indicators, including daily average number of readers and ARPU. Kakao Japan will now take Piccoma's formula for success onto the global stage. Starting with France in November, Kakao Japan will showcase a new platform to the European market so as to broaden its ecosystem.
We expect Kakao Japan will secure another springboard for the growth of the story business with its European launch, since it will be backed by Kakao Entertainment original IP, which have been already proven in Japan. Meanwhile, Kakao Entertainment's combined GMV of both the story platform and IP distribution reported KRW 232.5 billion, up 56% year-over-year. In North America, we saw growth around Kakao Entertainment original IPs with combined basis GMV for North America on a daily basis up 77% year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter. In August, in just three months after its launch in Thailand, Kakao Webtoon gained market leading position in the local webtoon market, quickly building its influence. In Korea, Kakao Webtoon underwent renewal and together with the growth of Kakao Page, drove a rebound in the domestic platform GMV.
This year, we've seen story business shift its pivot towards the global market with a strong underpinning in Asia and North America, as we look forward to a more pronounced performance from global content business next year. Our capabilities in planning and production of content were fully proven with back-to-back release of popular media content that carried sufficient scale and quality. By actively engaging top-tier creators and producers, we are broadening our reach for our business. With growing global interest on K content, we expect Kakao Entertainment to further broaden its synergies by leveraging our in-house production capabilities as well as our high caliber creators and talent IP. Last point I wish to mention is on Kakao's ESG update. Kakao in January set up environmental management group under the CEO and was tasked with developing various strategies on environment.
In September, we installed recycling machine in the office so that the Kakao crew can experience firsthand the circular cycle of reuse of resources, and we plan to expand on it to make an eco-friendly office. From May to August, we offered Kakao Class, which was a class on how to operate and develop Talk Store for businesses on the platform, which helped small businesses grow their top line. Kakao Class is a training program for want-to-be entrepreneurs, small merchants, creators, which we've been running for the past six years. With more than 1,500 cumulative participants in the program, we plan to expand the program from 2022 as well.
In August, we set up an ESG fund raising KRW 20 billion together with SK Telecom, and the fund will be a bedrock to many ESG innovators, creating a virtual cycle whereby these companies may grow and have positive social influence. We will continue to endeavor in many ways to attain symbiotic growth with many different stakeholders.
Good morning, this is Jae. Let me brief you on Q3 financial results. Q3 consolidated operating revenue was KRW 1,740.8 billion, up 29% on quarter and 58% year-on-year. First platform revenue was up 2% on quarter and 35% on year to KRW 778.7 billion. Talk Biz revenue was up 4% on quarter and 38% on year to KRW 404.9 billion.
Of which, for the advertising revenue, even though there was a decline in accounting-based revenue on free promotion of Emoticon Plus offered to the entire population, thanks to greater synergies from Bizboard, Talk Channel, and AlimTalk, there was steady growth. For the commerce revenue, a new COVID wave, there was a decline in exhibition and experience related revenue from the Makers. However, on growth in Talk Store and Gift users and product lineup, there was top-line growth. For the quarter Biz revenue, display ad revenue was solid, but with a new search ad platform launch and discontinuation of some of the existing ad products, revenue was down 5% Q-on-Q and 2% year-on-year to KRW 119.2 billion.
For platform and other revenue, as Kakao Mobility saw a decline in demand and KakaoPay made changes following the enactment of the Financial Consumer Protection Act, there was 3% quarter-on-quarter growth and a growth in franchise taxi fleet of Kakao Mobility and KakaoPay's payment and financial services growth. There was 54% year-on-year growth, with revenue recording KRW 254.7 billion. Content revenue was up 63% quarter-on-quarter and 84% year-on-year to KRW 962.1 billion. Thanks to record high performance of Odin, the mobile game revenue was up 260% quarter-on-quarter and 208% year-on-year to KRW 463.1 billion.
On solid growth from platform and IP distribution GMV, as well as consolidation effect of Tapas and Radish, story revenue was up 17% quarter-on-quarter and 47% year-on-year to KRW 218.7 billion. Supported by a robust paid subscriber base for Melon and success of our own artist, THE BOYZ, broader lineup for distribution and growth in performance revenue, music revenue was up 5% quarter-on-quarter and 8% year-on-year to KRW 297.1 billion. Lastly, media revenue reported KRW 83.1 billion, with the talent management business continuing its quarterly growth as artists' scope of activities broadened. While a reduced lineup of movies and dramas in Q3, total revenue was down 5% quarter-on-quarter, but up 102% year-over-year. Next is on consolidated basis, operating expense and profit.
Q3 consolidated operating expense was up 32% quarter-on-quarter and 60% year-on-year to report KRW 1,572.6 billion. If you look at expense breakdown for labor cost on new hires for Kakao's key affiliates and consolidation effect of subsidiaries, Q3 headcount was up by 1,038 quarter-on-quarter and 3,349 year-on-year, reaching 13,174 people, significantly driving up salary and welfare benefits. The one-off effect of stock-based compensation last quarter suppressed the rise in labor cost to 2% quarter-on-quarter, while year-on-year, there was 28% increase, with labor costs reporting KRW 307.2 billion.
Odin's smashing hit and GMV growth for the story biz drove up commissions paid, leading to 52% Q-on-Q and 74% year-on-year rise for the revenue linked expense at KRW 805.8 billion. On the back of higher commissions for mobility business and infrastructure expense, outsourcing infrastructure expense was up 20% on quarter and 74% on year to KRW 197.8 billion. Driven by global marketing investment for the story business and aggressive promotion for Odin, the mobile game, marketing expense was up 62% on quarter and 94% on year, reporting KRW 148.1 billion. Also, please note that % of marketing spend against the revenue for Q3 was 8.5%, with cumulative as of Q3 reporting 7%.
All in all, Q3 operating profit was up 3% quarter-on-quarter and 40% year-on-year to KRW 168.2 billion, with OP margin at 9.7%. Next, on non-operating revenues and expenses. With Kakao Bank's IPO and inclusion of Tapas and Radish in the consolidated statement, significantly pushed up disposition gains from equity method shares, leading to a total of KRW 799.6 billion of other revenues. Other expense came in at KRW 20.7 billion on rise in due diligence and outsourcing advisory fees for mobility, entertainment, and pay required for the new business expansion. This was an increase of 8% quarter-on-quarter and 17% year-on-year.
On profit generation from companies, for example, Dunamu, Kakao Bank, and Lionheart Studio, which is Odin's developer, there were equity method gains of KRW 176.6 billion. Equity method loss booked KRW 5.4 billion. For financial revenue and expense, key factors that came into play were fluctuations in foreign currency deposit translations on the back of strong dollar. In terms of expense, there was higher valuation loss from derivatives relating to RCPS conversion to common shares issued by certain subsidiaries. As a result, Q3 financial revenue booked KRW 43.9 billion, while financial expense was KRW 90.4 billion. Q3 corporate income tax reported KRW 205.5 billion, while consolidated net profit came in at KRW 866.3 billion. Last but not least, Q3 CapEx.
Investment for tangible assets, including servers, was KRW 52.1 billion, and tangible assets, including IPs, was KRW 17.5 billion, with total investment amounting to KRW 69.6 billion. This ends the earnings highlight for Q3 2021. We will now move on to the Q&A. As we are mindful of time, please ask no more than two questions per person.
Now Q&A session will begin. Please press star one, that is star and one if you have any questions. Questions will be taken according to the order you've pressed the number star one. For cancellation, please press star two, that is star and two on your phone.
The first question will be provided by Kim Jin-gu from KTB Investment & Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
I would like to ask two questions. Can you provide some more color on what your detailed strategies are relating to your NFT based business and Metaverse? Second question, ex-Japan, can you give us some of the performance indicators such as GMV and MAU with respect to Webtoon and Web Novels? What is your global strategy with regards to secondary or derivative content?
Hello, this is Jae. Responding to your question, currently Kakao is in the process of really focusing all of its capabilities so that we may fully prepare for the upcoming Metaverse age. Within Ground X of Kakao, we have very strong technological capabilities, and we have very strong content-based assets. We are, as we speak, in the process of developing a detailed strategy. Once that plan gets confirmed and is finalized, we will come back to the market and provide you with more information.
Regarding your question about Kakao Entertainment and, you know, global performance. First of all, if you look at Thailand, Kakao Webtoon by leveraging the original IPs of Kakao Entertainment, is now shoulder to shoulder with the incumbent number one player in that market.
In just one quarter since we launched into that market, we really rose to and have a very solid positioning as top two player. If you look at North America, we have finalized the acquisition process last July for the platforms, Tapas and Radish. Kakao Entertainment for the North American market will be offering original webtoons and web novels. Kakao Entertainment's original webtoons and web novels will be provided to North America. We are at this point, at the, you know, initial stage of learning about the characteristics of the users with respect to the content.
Going forward, we expect that there will be a quite significant growth from this market as we are at this point observing an uptrend in terms of GMV and the number of users for the content that leverage the original IPs of Kakao Entertainment. We do have high hopes for that market.
Regarding the MAU indicators, we are seeing a quite balanced growth with regards to the targets that we've set in terms of the number of users as well as GMV. We have seen the traffic uptrend quite solidly from the markets. If you look at the MAU compared to the free content platform, the absolute size may be small, but we are seeing that GMV per user as of today is much higher.
Going forward, we will continue to expand on our global platform so that we can really grow the number of user base who enjoy the story content that we offer, and we want to be able to provide highly immersive experience to these user base, thereby driving both qualitative and quantitative growth at the same time. Aside from North America and Southeast Asian market, last September, Kakao Japan completed the establishment of Piccoma Europe entity in the European market, and is currently planning to launch its Piccoma services in France. Based on our analysis, France has high level of familiarity when it comes to Japanese manga, but its digitalization process is only just beginning. We believe that the French market is quite similar compared to Japanese content market when we first entered with Piccoma back in 2016.
Therefore, we think the French market is going to be a very effective test bed for us to tap the market and see the potential of the market. Basically, we will be equipped with a comprehensive content library of Korean webtoon content from Kakao Entertainment and Japanese manga, and we will be able to provide a very high level of services to the French market, and we will implement the formula for success for Piccoma that it had gained in the Japanese market, and we'll be able to apply that in France as well. When the time comes for us to launch Piccoma services in France, we will come back to you with more detailed business strategies and plans for service.
Lastly, regarding our global expansion plan for feature films and dramas, as you know, with the global OTTs now really removing all the national boundaries, we see a very accelerated trend towards content consumption. Recently, we've seen raving responses all over the world on K content, and we now have an easier environment for us to actually access the global base of users. Based on a very competitive media IP value chain that Kakao Entertainment already has, we will be able to provide digital content, entertainment, drama, and motion picture across various different genres, and we're in the process of really building our capabilities in content production. Kakao Entertainment's original IP is, you know, making a headway into the global stage, not just in Asia or North America.
We, leveraging these very content-competitive content offerings, we will be showcasing not just webtoons, web novels, but also motion pictures and dramas through which we want to further enhance the value of the IP that we have. Just to share with you some of the upcoming lineup for after Q4. At this point, Business Proposal, which is a drama that uses Kakao Page's IP, is currently under production. Although we don't have the specific schedule yet, currently, the director, Yoon Jong-bin, is working on Suriname, as well as some other titles such as Seungbu and Lee Jung-jae, who's recently gained a lot of popularity worldwide, is going to debut as a director with his first film, Hunt. Also, Money Heist, which is a Netflix remake, is under production as well.
There are multiple other titles that are currently being worked on, but which we cannot disclose at this point in time. Regarding Kakao TV's original content, currently, there's production ongoing, Toy Soldiers, Money Game, and Fight Club, was actually introduced or announced early October. Kakao Page's IP-based drama, Shadow Beauty and Coffee With Me and Jinx are some of the dramas that are currently slated to be aired going forward.
Next question, please.
The following question will be presented by Stanley Yang from JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
I will be asking two questions as well. Yeah, you've shared with us your strategies for Webtoon and your entertainment. With respect to distribution of these titles, what is your eventual strategy? Through Piccoma and Kakao Page, in terms of distributing, you know, feature films or motion pictures and dramas, do you think that it has potential to grow into something like Netflix, the global distribution platform? Or do you have a strategy to actually grow it into such global platform? Or is your strategy just focusing on production, and would that provide you with ample revenue stream? We've seen very steep growth of your advertising and commerce business over the years, so we expect that there will be some slowing down of that pace of growth. Mason we would like to understand what your take is on future prospects for growth in this business segment.
I believe your question regards to the SVOD services in the global market. First, if you look at the domestic market, we are trying at this, and we are, you know, taking our attempts at distribution of such content through Kakao TV and also through Kakao Page as well. For the global market, looking at Piccoma, and in North America, Radish and Tapas, we are tapping into the feasibility of this distribution business. Once we have some more clearer, I guess, details, we will, you know, communicate that to you.
Yeah,
This is Mason. Responding to your question about what my take is in terms of the potential, you know, the growth potential of the advertisement business. If you look at Talk Biz and its growth, you can actually break that down into Bizboard element as well as Talk Channel. Basically, the business messaging that arises out of the business account under that Talk Channel. Basically, what they do is, you know, they send out very tailored and very well formulated messages to their targeted segment. On top of that, there is Kakao Commerce's gifting feature in Kakao Store, which leverages all of these different aspects in serving the right person at the right time, the right product that they desire.
We are definitely therefore in the process of really developing this business-based platform, the core of which is a complete connection across all of these elements. The key is, if you look at Talk Channel, an indicator that we very closely monitor is the growth trend of the number of business partners on both the year-on-year and Q-on-Q basis. We see that trend is actually going up much higher than we had expected. One element that I would like to also emphasize and ask you to also keep in your mind is the Sync. Basically, what Sync allows business partners to do is for them to actually open up an account and provide a process for the users to very easily sign on to that account, log in, out, and do all of those things.
If we look at some of the indicators, what we see is that if a message is actually sent through the Sync, then we see a higher level of conversion. The performance that we are getting out of this product is actually, you know, quite good, and it has high potential. Basically, for all of the partners who are online and who are in the mobile platform who seek to bring about higher purchase conversion, I believe all of those partners, there is potential to turn them into our Talk Channel partners. With that, I think that since we are only at the beginning phase of this initiative and in this process, we think that there is greater potential for that number to actually grow going forward.
Next question .
The following question will be presented by Dong Yoon Lee from KB Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
You've mentioned that, I mean, if you look at the platforms, you have webtoons and other content IPs, Piccoma and Radish, you basically operate five different platforms. Is your strategy to divide up geographies? For instance, for Southeast Asia, it would be Kakao Entertainment, for Europe, Kakao Japan, since Kakao Japan set up an entity there. Do you have a separate strategy for different geographies? Is your strategy to take different branding depending on which global market you're in? Can you provide also some marketing expense related guidance for your webtoon business and the content business? Second, with the recent initiative by the company to really focus on inclusive growth together with the small mom-and-pop and small business merchants, do you think that will have any impact on your, on the business' performance?
And also-
Aside from the game, the webtoons and web novels, what are some of the other types of content that you plan to take global?
Yes. You asked about if there is any, you know, different geography-based rules of Kakao Entertainment and Piccoma. First, if you look at Kakao Entertainment, the growth was very much domestic focused at the very beginning, supported by the Korean content. For the Japanese market, we saw a quite big potential there with respect to the mangas and the cartoons, so we decided to independently enter into Japanese market by taking Piccoma. Worldwide, however, recently we've seen a, you know, wide recognition of K-content on the global stage. In terms of our global launch, basically we launched Kakao Webtoon, and we did that first off in the Southeast Asian region.
We're already also in markets like China and India as well, and the numbers that we are seeing from these markets are also quite positive. These are different elements that will come into play as we think about our global expansion. In the U.S., after acquiring Radish and Tapas, yes, in North America we are laying certain, you know, basis. In North America it's not just Kakao Entertainment, and we will not just end there. We have seen that there exists a demand for Japanese content as well, so Piccoma and Kakao Entertainment is expected to collaborate and cooperate together in further tapping into the North American market.
For Europe, since we were able to identify that there is demand for Japanese-based content, that's why we are taking Piccoma first into that European market, but we will also be bringing in Kakao Entertainment as well, so the two entities will collaborate, cooperate, at the same time, compete as well. Aside from the webtoons, first, if you look at the game business, basically all the new titles that is upcoming has global market in mind from the very onset of development of those games. This will be a quite ambitious objective and goal for our game business so that it could establish itself as a global top-tier game provider.
The game business already has local infrastructure in North America and Europe, and it has a lot of success and best practice experiences under itself.
Hence, we expect there to be quite a big opportunity going forward. Lastly, aside from content, in order to broaden our business reach into other areas on the global stage, Kakao is planning to leverage its service and technological capabilities and is trying new attempt. To that end, Kakao has set up a new entity in Singapore, called Krust in August, and this entity is going to play the role of a base camp. They will first look at ways to create synergies with, for instance, Klaytn's blockchain platform. There are new business initiatives that are currently being developed. We plan to implement our global new businesses through collaborating with other innovative services as well as AI.
Starting next year, on top of content offerings, we will do our best to make sure we give back to you some good news in other areas of our global business.
We'll move on to the next question.
The following question will be presented by Donghwan Oh from Samsung Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
I would like to ask you questions. There has been a significant drop in your operating profit margin, quite significantly. Considering that the OP margin was, the operating profit was quite high for Kakao Games, it seems like the margin from other businesses must have plummeted quite significantly. Can you provide some color there? Second, under the regulatory backdrop, you've made an announcement with respect to the coexistence plan or the inclusive growth plan with the smaller businesses. Would that not impact your new business initiatives?
Yeah, if you look at our Q3 top line sales or revenue, it actually reported KRW 1,740.8 billion, which was a quite sizable Q-on-Q increase. If you look at the breakdown, platform revenue was up 2% Q-on-Q, content revenue up 63%.
We've seen quite a bit of content, especially game contribution on the top line growth. As a result, the size of the profit this quarter did actually go up. Relatively speaking from the game where there is higher level of revenue-linked expenses, as well as if you think of the global investments that we have been putting into under Kakao Entertainment, Southeast Asia and North America expansion, and Piccoma's Japan and European business expansion, there were increases in the relevant investment. Operating profit on a Q on Q basis posted a single-digit growth, while OP margin slightly dipped Q on Q, reporting around 10% level. With respect to the fourth quarter, this is traditionally a high season for revenue and sales.
We think that come Q4, we will be recording historically high top line for Talk Biz, Pay and Mobility. As a result of the platform revenue, we expect it is going to post a double-digit growth compared to Q3. For the content business, we expect that our story business is gonna continue to show good global performance. For the mobile game revenue, which had a big launching effect in Q3, will downward stabilize. The overall total content revenue will show a slight Q-on-Q decline. Now in Q4, we will continue to focus on more aggressive global investment rather than focusing on maximizing our bottom line. We will also endeavor and really focus on the coexistence plan so that we may bring about a better performance in a long-term perspective.
Q4, we will continue to be once again aggressive in global marketing and investment for our games and stories. We expect about similar level of marketing spend as compared to the third quarter. In terms of some of our affiliates that have posted good performance this year, in Q4, there's going to be an additional recognition and booking of incentive pay, especially for Kakao Ventures. They're going to be liquidating their KQ number one fund. We expect there to be a rise in a one off expense. At this point, we have not yet decided on the size of that incentive performance payment. Once that is confirmed, we will inform you on that.
Yeah.
Regarding your question, basically, Kakao and its affiliates are currently engaged in very in-depth discussion as to discover and identify many different ways that we could coexist with smaller businesses and merchants. Now, we are in the process of devising the specific plan, so once that is all ready, we will definitely inform you of that. From a short-term perspective, it's inevitable that there would be some financial impact. I think that this is a positive opportunity for us to actually set a very stable and cooperative relationship and a structure whereby from a long-term perspective, we will be able to bring more long-term growth. We will take the final question.
The last question will be presented by Soyun Shin from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead with your question.
Anyway, regarding your advertising business, you've mentioned that there was impact from the emoji business, the accounting and the free provision of emoji services that having impact on your advertising revenue. If you were to classify, what is your normalized advertising revenue growth trends look like? For the Talk Channel business, what is the percentage that Talk Channel-based messaging account for out of your total general messaging? I would think that that percentage is low at this point. Do you think that it has potential to actually become bigger than the Talk Biz?
Yeah.
On the Emoticon Plus product, the impact from that product was not all that significant on a standalone basis. It's just that for the whole quarter, we provided a free promotion for this new product, and that had an impact on a revenue discount. The growth rate basically therefore there was some offsetting effect on the growth rate because the revenue was discounted. In terms of your second question on Talk Channel messaging growth, we are still at an early stage, and you asked about the percentage. If you look at the total amount of inbound and outbound messaging from KakaoTalk, that itself is so large that actually calculating a percentage of this message against that total is not really meaningful.
Having said that, in terms of the Biz channel, we are seeing both year-on-year and Q-on-Q growth of the number of friends on the business channel, and so the growth potential is quite solid for us. I can say, definitely say that the potential for growth for this business is quite big.
Oh, this brings us to the end of the Q3 2021 earnings presentation. Thank you very much for joining us this morning.