SK Telecom reports 6% quarterly growth in Q2 on steady 5G application expansion

[Photo by MK DB]

SK Telecom reported Tuesday its second-quarter operating income rose 6 percent from the previous quarter on steady growth in 5G-based application businesses from pay TV to enterprise data clouding.

The top Korean wireless carrier estimated its consolidated operating income at 459.6 billion won ($352 million) for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022. That is up 6.3 percent from the previous quarter and 16.2 percent from a year ago.

Net profit rose 17.2 percent on quarter but fell 67.6 percent on year to 258.1 billion won largely due to change in its accounting rule separating out incomes from non-telecom units like SK hynix.

Revenue came to 4.29 trillion won, up 0.3 percent on quarter and 4 percent on year.

The results are slightly below consensus estimate of 465.1 billion won in operating income and 4.31 trillion won in revenue.

On Tuesday, SK Telecom shares closed at 52,900 won, the same as previous session.

The company said it was able to achieve meaningful growth in its five key strategic businesses – telecom, media, enterprise, artificial intelligence and connected intelligence.

5G network subscribers have come to account for a half of its entire fixed line and mobile service users. According to data compiled by the Ministry of Science and ICT, SK Telecom had 11.68 million 5G subscribed users at the end of June, up 52 percent from a year ago.

Media business delivered 382.1 billion won in revenue, up 22.3 percent on year, as SK Broadband maintained solid growth in its pay TV service sales.

SK Telecom generated 374.3 billion won in revenue from enterprise business, centering around data center and cloud services. That is up 13.8 percent compared with a year ago, reporting double digit growth for two quarters straight. Cloud business revenue has jumped a whopping 133 percent in a year.

Subscription service business achieved gross merchandize value of 260 billion won in the first half of the year. The number of subscribers to T Universe, the company¡¯s subscription-based platform, reached 1.2 million. Its metaverse platform, ifland, recorded monthly active user count of 1.63 million and cumulative app downloads of 8.7 million.

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