KT cooks up ways to unify brand with QOOK services

KT Corp. unveiled its new unifying “home services” brand QOOK (www.qook.co.kr) yesterday.

With this, KT’s services for households including Internet, IPTV and home phones will now be under the QOOK brand, with various discount packages and simplified service systems. Names of services for example will be QOOK Internet, QOOK TV, and so forth.

The company said QOOK stands for subscribers “cooking up and selecting quality services in any way they choose” through this new brand.

“We unified our individual services under this new brand in order to change our service marketing style and compete as an all-new KT Group,” said Roh Tae-seok, vice president of KT’s home customer unit.

The company, meanwhile, faces a harsh economic climate as it expects revenue from household subscribers to drop this year due to weakening demand. The company expects sales of fixed-line phone and broadband Internet services to Korean households to total 7.5 trillion won ($5.7 billion) - a 5.1 percent fall compared to 2008.

Roh said that the number of landline subscribers decreases by around 5,000 people a day and that revenue from landline business will most likely post around 4 trillion won this year, falling by around 500 billion won from last year.

The company struggled in 2008 with net profit decreasing 54 percent on-year and sales down 1.3 percent compared to 2007, to 11.7 trillion won.

By Cho Jae-eun [jainnie@joongang.co.kr]