SK Telecom posts revenue increase in second quarter

Korea’s largest wireless carrier, SK Telecom, posted second-quarter revenue of 4.267 trillion won ($3.79 billion), a 0.3 percent year-on-year increase, according to a press release Thursday.

The figure is an improvement of 0.9 percent from the first quarter. The company said that this rise was backed by sales by its subsidiaries, even though sign-up fees were eliminated and users were offered discounts that came with installment purchase contracts.

The company’s operating profit, though, fell 1.3 percent year on year to 407.4 billion won. This was influenced largely by the recently increasing expenses of its subsidiaries’ business activities, according to SK Telecom.

By quarter, however, the figure saw a 1.3 percent rise.

SK Telecom’s net profit slid 26.9 percent year on year to 291 billion won. The reason for this, SK said, is because SK Hynix saw a reduced equity method gain. The figure is a 49.2 percent fall from the previous quarter.

Close to 70 percent of the company’s total mobile subscribers are LTE users, based on data from June 2016.