SK Telecom said its LTE subscriber base has reached 18.46 million, taking up over 64.8 percent of the company’s total mobile subscriber base in September 2015.
The revenue of SK Telecom fell 2.4 percent to KRW 4.261 trillion in September quarter — due to the elimination of sign-up fees, decreased network interconnection revenue caused by interconnection fee reduction, and increased number of subscribers who select mobile fee discounts based on their contracts.
The operating income dipped 8.6 percent to KRW 490.6 billion due to decreased revenue.
The net income fell 28.1 percent to KRW 382 billion due to lower operating profit and reduced equity method gain from SK Hynix.
SK Telecom’s customer churn rate has improved to 1.4 percent in the third quarter of 2015 against 2 percent in Q3 2014.
SK Telecom will focus on three platforms namely Lifestyle Enhancement Platform, Advanced Media Platform, and IoT Service Platform.
The Korean telecom operator plans to increase the total number of its smart home-capable products on the IoT Service Platform to 25 this year, and to 45 by the first half of next year. SK Telecom has smart home partnership with 33 companies against nine in May 2015.
SK Telecom boosts media biz
Meanwhile, SK Telecom decided to acquire CJ O Shopping’s 30 percent stake in CJ Hellovision for KRW 500 billion and aims to merge SK Broadband and CJ Hellovision. SK Telecom will have 75.3 percent stake in the merged entity, while CJ O Shopping will hold 8.4 percent.
SK Telecom plans to set media as the main business of the merged entity targeting cable TV – IPTV business. SK Telecom and CJ Corporation will create two KRW 50 billion funds to invest in media contents and IT startups.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
