SEOUL-- Kakao Pay Corp., the online payment unit of South Korean tech giant Kakao Corp., said Tuesday its second-quarter net loss decreased 38.4 percent from a year earlier thanks to expansion of retail franchise partnerships.

Kakao Pay logged a net loss of 5.7 billion won (US$4.4 million) on a consolidated basis in the three months ending in June, compared with a 9.28 billion-won net loss a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales climbed 22.8 percent to 134.1 billion won, and the company's operating loss widened to 12.5 billion won, compared with an operating loss of 8.2 billion won a year earlier.

The operating loss was 142 percent higher than the average estimate, according to the survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.

The company attributed the on-year net loss reduction to the growth of sales led by those of its transaction service division, which grew 35.7 percent on-year, backed by an expansion of online and offline retail franchise partnerships.

Volume of transactions during the second quarter amounted to 29.1 trillion won.

The service's accumulated users reached 38.15 million, with monthly active users tallied at 21.95 million. The average number of annual transactions per user climbed 25 percent to 100.3.

Source: Yonhap News Agency