Telecom Lead Korea: SK Telecom’s Capex (capital expenditure) in third quarter increased to 788 billion won from 552 billion won in Q3 2011.
The company on Tuesday said its investment costs include spend for its LTE networks.
Meanwhile, SK Telecom’s revenue increased 2 percent to 4.126 trillion won.
The y-o-y increase in revenue was due to expanded ARPU driven by LTE subscriber growth and strong performance of SK Planet, the company’s subsidiary.
ARPU stood at KRW 33,135 backed by robust LTE subscriber growth.
SK Telecom’s operating income decreased by 46.4 percent y-o-y to 300.7 billion won.
The main reason for decrease in operating income was due to factors including expanded investment in LTE networks and a temporary increase in LTE marketing expenses.
The consolidated net income for the third quarter stood at 175.6 billion won, down 54.2 percent.
SK Telecom has over 6 million LTE subscribers as of October-end and expects to smoothly achieve the year-end target of 7 million LTE subscribers.
Moreover, SK Telecom said that it expects to see 80 percent or higher growth in the B2B business, one of its main growth drivers, compared to the same period last year as monthly revenues from enterprise solutions are increasing rapidly thanks to strong collaboration with SK Broadband and SK Telink.
Meanwhile, SK Planet is creating new profit-generating models by leveraging its competitiveness in services like T Store and T Map.
SK Planet’s online marketplace named 11thStreet (11st) saw its revenue for the third quarter exceed KRW 1 trillion. Furthermore, the mobile version of the online shopping site is also rapidly growing in terms of transaction volume.
SK Telecom Chief Financial Officer Ahn Seung-yun said: “SK Telecom will build a solid ICT business structure by fully leveraging its solid LTE subscriber growth momentum, B2B business growth and SK Planet’s business performance that has been clearly witnessed in the third quarter. In the mobile telecommunications area, SK Telecom will reinforce its status as the global leading LTE service provider by strengthening its core competitiveness in network quality, innovative services and differentiated customer care.”
