SK Telecom more than doubles Q2 profit

SK Telecom more than doubled its net profit during the second quarter due to factors including a record performance at chipmaker SK Hynix.

The operator reported a net income of 620.5 billion won ($555.06 million), up 113.2% year-on-year. Revenue meanwhile grew 1.8% to 4.35 trillion won and operating income increased 3.9% to 423.3 billion won.

But it was a challenging quarter for the operator’s core telecommunications business, with operting income on a non-consolidated basis falling 3.3% year-on-year to 462.3 billion won due to increased marketing expenses and depreciation costs from the 2.6-GHz spectrum acquired last year.

Despite this non-consolidated revenue edged up slightly to 3.11 trillion won, due to increased mobile data usage and increased sales in new business areas including IoT solutions.

Revenue from the SK Broadband division meanwhile increased 1.9% year-on-year to 730.1 billion won and the unit reported a record-high quarterly operating income of 31.6 billion won.

Internet commerce arm SK Planet meanwhile posted a 5.4% increase in sales to 275 billion won, but still recorded an operating loss of 35.1 billion won.

“Despite the challenges in the mobile telecommunications market, SK Telecom posted improved results due to the strengthened performance of its main subsidiaries,” SK Telecom CFO Ryu Young-sang commented.

“SK Telecom will become a global leading ICT company by achieving meaningful growth in media and IoT, while maintaining leadership in the mobile network operations business.”

The company is also planning to connect its AI platform to other services, including mobile services, media, commerce and its T Map mobile navigation service to generate differentiated big data it can use to provide customized products and services.