Naver Corp., South Korea's top Internet portal operator, and Kakao Corp., the operator of the country's top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, are forecast to see their earnings improve in the second quarter of the year, a report showed Friday.

The operating profit of Naver is likely to soar by 58.7 percent on-year to reach 265.2 billion won ($226.8 million) in the April-June period, according to the report by online financial information provider Fn Guide.


Sales are also forecast to gain 25.4 percent on-year to 949 billion won and net profit to climb 46 percent on-year to 181 billion won during the cited period, the report said.

The report attributed the gain to Naver's increased sales in advertisement on the mobile platform and the company's plan to list shares of global messaging app operator LINE Corp. under its arm.

Earlier, Naver said it will list Line's shares in Tokyo and New York next month in what could be one of the year's biggest initial public offerings for a technology company.

Separately, the report forecast Kakao's operating profit to skyrocket by 276.8 percent on-year to 43.1 billion won in the second quarter as its advertisement business meets rising seasonal demand.

Sales are likely to soar by 59.3 percent from a year earlier to reach 360.8 billion won and net profit to increase by 40 percent on-year to 29.9 billion won in the same period, according to the report.

Kakao suffered a decline in its first quarter bottom line mainly due to falling seasonal demand for its advertisement services. (Yonhap)