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Lower Handset Sales in South Korea
The number of mobile telecom subscribers in South Korea grew 125,401 Month on Month in September to 45.3 million and the penetration rate rose to 93.1%, reports Korea Investment and Securities. Monthly net additions in September were slightly higher than in July and August but only 50.7% of the monthly average in 1H08, which shows cooled competition since July.
Overall market shares stand at 50.53% for SK Telecom (SKT), 31.49% for KTF and 17.98% for LG Telecom (LGT). SKTÃ's slipped 0.01%p but LGTÃ's inched up by the same measure.
Although "010" prefix additions rose 17.2% MoM in September, mobile number portability (MNP) activations and handset changes contracted 5% and 20.8%, respectively. Therefore, total handset sales slipped 2.1% to 1.85mn in September from 1.88mn in August.
By operator, lower handset sales were 6% for SKT, 20.6% for KTF and 12.5% for LGT. The research house noted though that lower handset sales usually implies fewer marketing incentives and hence higher operating margins.
Posted to the site on 8th October 2008