SK Telecom 3rd-Quarter Profits Jump 25%

­South Korea's SK Telecom  has reported a 5.4% rise in third-quarter revenues to KRW 3.057 trillion (US$2.57 billion), while operating income rose by 22.7% to KRW 618.8 billion. Net income reached KRW 415.9 billion (US$350 million), growing by 24.7% year-on-year and 33.5% quarter-on-quarter.

The wireless Internet revenue expanded 7.0% year-on-year due to growth in flat-rate data plan subscribers.

The cumulative number of subscribers climbed by 6% compared to third quarter of last year to reach 24.14 million while ARPU marked KRW 42,413 (US$35.66). While revenue from base fees and call charges declined KRW 423 per user from continued tariff cutting measures, ARPU rose by KRW 20 compared to same quarter last year as the wireless Internet revenue expanded KRW 141 per user.

Average monthly Minutes of Usage (MOU) per user stood at 196 minutes, remaining the same year-on-year while decreasing by 2 minutes compared to last quarter.

SK Telecom's CFO Dong-Hyun Jang said, "Market stabilization in the third quarter is expected to continue until the year-end. Under such circumstances, SK Telecom will refrain from excessive marketing and deploy effective marketing policies based on our Customer Experience Management (CEM) strategy."

"On September 25th, SK Telecom implemented various tariff cut measures including discount for long term subscribers, introduction of per-second charge system, lowering of subscription fee, lowering of prepaid tariff and introduction of heavy discount flat rate data plan. We believe our customers will soon be able to strongly feel the effect of these measures. We expect to minimize the counter effects of tariff cut on revenue as such measures lead to strengthening of SK Telecom's core competitiveness through greater customer retention, increase in mobile usage and revitalization of wireless Internet services," said Jang.

Posted to the site on 29th October 2009