SKT, 2nd Quarter Operating Profit of 566 Billion Won, Up 67.3% Year-on-Year...Telecom Business Shows Recovery Trend

*This content was translated by AI.

On the 5th, SK Telecom announced that its consolidated operating profit for the second quarter of this year reached 566 billion won, a 67.34% increase compared to the same period last year.

During the same period, revenue rose by 0.47% to 4.3591 trillion won, while net income surged 459% to 466 billion won. Compared to the first quarter, operating profit increased by 5.29%, and net income grew by 47.27%. Revenue decreased slightly by 0.76% from the previous quarter.

Following last year’s hacking incident that led to poor performance, the company has now entered a full-fledged recovery phase in the second quarter of this year.

The telecom business demonstrated clear signs of recovery through efforts such as expanding customer value and improving profitability, while the AI business gained momentum with accelerated execution, showing steep growth.

On a separate basis, SK Telecom’s revenue for the period was 3.117 trillion won, down 0.58% year-on-year, but operating profit rose 70.48% to 427.7 billion won. Net income during this period increased by 742% to 310.6 billion won.

The AI data center (DC) business showed the fastest growth among all business segments. Second-quarter AI DC revenue reached 136.2 billion won, up 92.5% year-on-year, driven by expanded operations.

AI B2B and B2C revenue also increased by 24.5% year-on-year to 61.3 billion won, supported by an expansion in cloud orders.

SK Telecom stated that it would strengthen its business execution capabilities centered on "SK Hyper," a newly established dedicated team for AI DC business development launched last month, aiming to secure market leadership. The company’s goal is to gradually open AI data centers with a capacity of 5 gigawatts (GW) by 2029.

In the telecom business, SK Telecom achieved net growth in handset subscribers even in a stabilized market environment through efficient marketing activities such as identifying new customer segments and running differentiated campaigns.

SK Telecom’s handset subscriber count reached 21.97 million in the second quarter, an increase of approximately 12,000 from the previous quarter, marking two consecutive quarters of net growth.

SK Broadband, which manages wired services, recorded revenue of 1.1603 trillion won and operating profit of 132.5 billion won, driven by growth in the data center business and an increase in high-speed internet subscribers. This represents a year-on-year increase of 3.6% in revenue and 44.3% in operating profit.

For the first half of the year on a consolidated basis, the company reported revenue of 8.7514 trillion won, operating profit of 1.1036 trillion won, and net income of 782.4 billion won. While revenue decreased by 0.47% compared to the same period last year, operating profit and net income increased by 21.9% and 75.9%, respectively.

Park Jong-seok, CFO of SK Telecom, stated, “During the first half of the year, we solidified our foundation based on stable earnings from the telecom business while laying the groundwork for rapid expansion of our AI data center business.” He added, “We will do our utmost to ensure that SKT plays a leading role in South Korea’s transformation into an AI infrastructure hub for Asia.”

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*This content was translated by AI.