SK Telecom's net falls 61% to $755 million in 2022

SK Telecom’s net profit plunged nearly 61 percent in 2022, mainly due to a spinoff of its semiconductor businesses.

A model uses ifland, SK Telecom's metaverse service [SK TELECOM]

SK Telecom’s net profit plunged nearly 61 percent in 2022, mainly due to a spinoff of its semiconductor businesses.

Its net profit stood at 947.8 billion won ($755.4 million) in 2022, down 60.8 percent compared to the previous year but still beating the market forecast of 918.8 billion won compiled by FnGuide.

The steep decline in the net earnings is due to the high base effect caused by the SK Square spinoff in November 2021, as equity contributions from SK hynix were excluded in the earnings.

Sales grew 3.3 percent to 17.3 trillion won, in line with the market expectation.

Operating profit increased 16.2 percent to 1.61 trillion won, a record-high figure since 2015, but fell short of the analyst forecast of 1.66 trillion won.

“The increase in the operating profit was boosted by the increase in 5G subscribers as well as its media and business-to-business [B2B] services,” said Kim Jin-won, chief financial officer of SK Telecom, during a conference call on Wednesday.

The number of SK Telecom’s 5G subscribers reached 13.4 million as of the end of last year, about 57 percent of the total handset subscribers and an increase from 10.2 million in January the same year.

“More than 80 percent of our customers will use 5G in 2025,” Kim added.

Sales of the media business increased 20.8 percent to 1.54 trillion won in the July-September period. The B2B businesses, which involve data centers and cloud computing services, grew 12.5 percent in sales to 1.51 trillion won.

SK Broadband, SK Telecom’s internet service subsidiary, saw a 2.6 percent increase in sales to 4.2 trillion won. Operating profit was up 11 percent to 305.7 billion won.

Monthly active users of its ifland metaverse service reached 3.7 million as of December, 10 percent of which are overseas.

SK Telecom picked artificial intelligence and urban air mobility businesses as its future growth engines.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]