Kakao Enterprise: "Not a Restructuring... Targeting the Global Market"

Lee Kyung-jin, the newly appointed CEO of Kakao Enterprise, is explaining the business direction at the 'Kakao i Cloud' press conference.

Kakao Enterprise, which faced rumors of workforce restructuring and business divestiture, has strongly denied the claims. Lee Kyung-jin, the newly appointed CEO of Kakao Enterprise, emphasized, “There are no decisions made regarding employee layoffs or business sales,” adding, “We will transform into a competitive company with sustainable growth momentum.”

Lee made these remarks on the 16th at a press briefing held at the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, where he introduced the business strategy and core competitiveness of Kakao i Cloud.

He explained, “This year, Kakao Enterprise’s goal is to advance technology beyond the domestic cloud level and to build a cloud fandom targeting developers and engineers,” adding, “We aim to enter the global market as an ‘all-rounder’ targeting the public and enterprise cloud markets.”

To this end, Kakao Enterprise will officially launch a global-level Multi Availability Zone (hereafter AZ) on the 31st. Multi-AZ is a core technology designed to minimize service impact even if an issue occurs in one availability zone, enabling stable usage.

Lee stated, “We advocate ‘high-performance cloud services at more competitive prices,’” and added, “Kakao i Cloud has received feedback that its performance is excellent and price competitiveness is strong even when compared with global cloud providers.”

Kakao Enterprise cited price competitiveness as its strength in the global market. It explained that it has increased cloud density through advanced technology and that profitability improvement is possible due to high price competitiveness relative to its technological capabilities. It was found that a 35% cost reduction is achieved through high cloud density, and it is expected that cost competitiveness will be further enhanced in the future.

Meanwhile, Lee strongly denied the restructuring rumors surrounding Kakao Enterprise. Earlier reports suggested that only the high-growth cloud division would be retained while other businesses would be wound down, with a significant number of employees being reassigned to other subsidiaries within the Kakao Group. Former CEO Baek Sang-yeop has decided to resign.

Lee said, “I think the conclusion was drawn because the profit structure was poor,” adding, “However, this does not mean shutting down existing businesses; we are reorganizing the organization to maintain profitability while continuing with existing customers and businesses, so this is not restructuring.” He further added, “We are currently at the stage of internally discussing specific matters and preparing self-help measures.”

Regarding Kakao Enterprise’s reorganization centered on the cloud, Lee emphasized, “The global cloud market is continuously expanding, and the domestic market has only completed 20-30% of cloud transition,” adding, “The growth potential of the cloud industry is limitless, and competing with global CSPs (Cloud Service Providers) also involves issues of national sovereignty.”

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