SK Telecom, KT beat earnings expectations in 2021

SK Telecom achieved an expectation-beating profit last year, reporting a net of 2.4 trillion won ($2 billion) in 2021, up 61 percent, against an FnGuide consensus of 2 trillion won.

Much of the profit and all of the surprise came from a one-off gain related to the sale of a baseball team.
On an operating basis, the telecommunication company made 1.39 trillion won last year, up 11 percent but short of analyst expectations of 1.44 trillion. Sales were 16.7 trillion won, up 4 percent.

The company attributed the growth to the 135.2-billion-won sale of the SK Wyverns to Emart and strong business across its business lines, including SK Broadband.

5G subscriptions reached the 10 million level in January.

SK Telecom also noted that its IPTV and commerce businesses grew, although it didn't break down sales.
The company "achieved even growth across all business areas, including MNO, IPTV and T-commerce," said Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom in a statement.

He set a goal of 23 trillion won of annual sales by 2025, with the focus on new business areas including metaverse, digital infrastructure services tailored for enterprise clients and robotics.

"This year, we will redefine our business centered around five business groups to accelerate our growth and innovation and enhance shareholder value to reach an annual revenue of 23 trillion won by 2025," he said.
The five areas are telecommunications, media, enterprise-oriented services, metaverse and robotics, which also covers air taxis.

In the fourth quarter, its net shrank by 14 percent on year to 314.8 billion won while operating profit declined by 23 percent to 226.7 billion won.

KT also beat expectation in terms of sales, net and operating profit, thanks to sound growth in all businesses.
Its net profit rose 107.5 percent to 1.46 trillion last year, above the 1.2 trillion won expectations. Operating profit rose 41.2 percent to 1.67 trillion won, higher than the market consensus of 1.5 trillion won.

Annual sales edged up by 4.1 percent to 24.9 trillion won.

In the fourth quarter, when the nationwide technical disruption took place, the telecom company reported 369.5 billion won in operating profit, up 128.5 on year but down 3.4 percent on quarter.

KT spent 40 billion won to compensate customers affected by the network failure in October.

Quarterly sales were up by 6.7 percent on year to 6.6 trillion won.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]