SK Telecom Q3 revenue grows 4.7%

SK Telecom has reported a 4.7% year-on-year increase in revenue for the third quarter to 4.44 trillion won ($3.99 billion), on the back of a solid performance across the operator’s core segments.

Net profit surged 146.2% year-on-year to 793 billion won due to higher gains on the operator’s equity method investment in chipmaker subsidiary SK Hynix.

Mobile service revenue grew 1.7% over the same period to 2.74 trillion won, driven by solid subscriber and data usage growth.

SK Telecom’s total customer base increased by 705,000 to 30.16 million, with LTE data users accounting for 74.8% of these subscribers.

Broadband subsidiary SK Broadband meanwhile reported a 1.2% increase in revenue to 760.2 billion won due to growth in IPTV subscription and paid content sales. High speed internet customers increased 1.1% sequentially to 5.4 million.

Internet platform unit SK Planet posted a 5.8% improvement in revenue to 285.1 billion won, due primarily to the growth of its online commerce business, but still reported a loss of 55.2 billion won.

Overall capex increased 5.3% year-on-year and 68.3% quarter-on-quarter to 556.7 billion won, while marketing expenses were up 10.8% year-on-year to 797.6 billion won.

Looking ahead, SK Telecom said it continues to explore opportunities in new businesses such as AI, IoT and autonomous driving to ensure mid- and long-term growth.