[Featured Stocks] Kakao Group Shares Simultaneously Hit New Lows... Narrowing Declines to Close Down 4-5% (Comprehensive)

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jaehee] Kakao Group stocks, which started with an 8-9% decline due to a data center fire accident, narrowed their losses and closed the session down 4-5%. However, during the trading session, Kakao Games, along with Kakao, Kakao Bank, and Kakao Pay, all hit new 52-week lows. The overall trust in the group stocks appears to have been damaged as services were paralyzed by the data center fire.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 17th, Kakao closed at 48,350 KRW, down 5.93%. During the session, Kakao fell as much as 9.53% to 46,500 KRW but reduced its losses. Kakao Bank and Kakao Pay also closed down 5.14% and 4.16% at 16,600 KRW and 34,600 KRW, respectively. Kakao Bank recorded a maximum intraday decline of 8.86%, and Kakao Pay fell as much as 10.11%. Kakao, Kakao Bank, and Kakao Pay all set new 52-week lows.

Kakao Games closed down 2.22% at 37,400 KRW.

On the afternoon of the 15th, around 3:30 PM, a fire broke out at a data center operated by SK C&C, causing service paralysis. Although Naver was also affected by this incident, it quickly restored its services thanks to segmented server management, whereas Kakao's services were suspended for nearly a full day.

In the securities industry, while the possibility of user migration to other platforms is considered low, the unprecedented nature of the incident makes a sharp stock price drop and a deterioration in fourth-quarter earnings inevitable.

Samsung Securities researcher Oh Donghwan stated, "The impact of this service outage on sales will appear as lost sales and user compensation," and forecasted, "Fourth-quarter sales are expected to decrease by up to 1-2%."

Daol Investment & Securities researcher Kim Jinwoo also pointed out, "If compensation extends to sellers connected to KakaoTalk and Kakao Pay, the scope of damages will become so large that it will be difficult to estimate," adding, "Even assuming only paid users, the impact on operating profit is about 12 billion KRW, which represents a 7% downward revision of the existing fourth-quarter estimates."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.