SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest telecom operator, ended the third quarter of the year with a total of 16.57 billion subscribers in the 5G segment, up 10.5% from 15 million in the same period the previous year, the carrier said in its earnings statement.
During the third quarter of the year, the Korean operator added nearly 400,000 5G subscribers. At the end of September, SK Telecom’s 5G subscribers accounted for 73% of its overall handset subscribers, up from 65% at the end of Q3 2023.
The number of LTE subscriber reached 6.26 million at the end of the third quarter, down 19.3% year-on-year.
The Korean carrier ended the third quarter of the year with a total of 34.27 million mobile subscribers, up 1.8% year-on-year.
SK Telecom reported its operating profit rose 7.1% to KRW533.3 billion ($380.5 million) in Q3 from a year earlier on a consolidated basis with sales up 2.9% to KRW4.53 trillion.
Net profit for the period decreased by 9.1% to KRW280.2 billion, while the telco’s capex in Q3 reached KRW461 billion, up 3% year-on-year.
“Our focus is on driving growth in three profitable AI areas, including AI data center, AI B2B and AI B2C businesses,” said Kim Yang-seob, CFO of SKT. “We will continue to enhance corporate value by advancing our two core businesses — telecommunications and AI — while maximizing returns for shareholders,” the executive said.
SK Telecom recently announced plans to build a nationwide AI infrastructure as a mid- to long-term strategy. The plan is to evolve into a nationwide AI infrastructure by introducing Edge AI technology to base stations, centered around regional AIDCs and GPUaaS in the metropolitan area. The telco noted that strategy aims to establish an ‘AI Infrastructure Superhighway’ that connects the entire country.
The Korean telco also stated that its AI personal assistant service, ‘A.’ (A-DoT), surpassed 5.5 million cumulative subscribers by the end of September, spurred by a major overhaul in August. In October, the service was rebranded as ‘A. Phone,’ incorporating AI features into T-phone, and it is rapidly expanding the scope of AI personal service from phone calls to LLM searches, including the introduction of ‘Multi LLM Agent,’ the PC version of A-DoT, the telco said.
SK Telecom recently unveiled ‘Aster(A*)’, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven personal assistant tailored for global users.
The telco noted that its Aster service is scheduled to launch a closed beta in North America later this year, with a full market launch planned for 2025.
Aster is designed as an ‘Agentic AI,’ which goes beyond simple Q&A or search functions by understanding users’ intentions to set goals, make plans and complete tasks on their behalf, the telco said.
SK Telecom plans to enhance Aster’s capabilities through partnerships with global search providers, LLM developers and third-party applications with the aim of establishing a comprehensive AI ecosystem for North American users.
Source: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20241106/featured/sk-telecoms-5g-subscriber-base-q3