SKT operating profit dragged down by home shopping business

SK Telecom headquarters in Jung District, central Seoul [SK TELECOM]

SK Telecom, Korea's largest mobile carrier, fell short of market expectations in the second quarter operating profit, affected by increased expenditures from its home shopping business.

The company's profit was 463.4 billion won ($351.7 million), slightly below the 479.1 billion won market estimate figure compiled by FnGuide.

Its home shopping business saw a dip in its sales due to lower consumer spending amid the economic slowdown.

Sales inched upwards 0.39 percent to 4.31 trillion won, in line with analysts’ forecast of 4.38 trillion won.

Net profit jumped 34.71 percent to 347.8 billion won, above the market consensus of 307.4 billion won.

SK Telecom had 14.67 million 5G subscribers as of June, or 63 percent of its total handset users, compared to 11.7 million subscribers in the same period last year.

Sales from media-related businesses rose 1.2 percent to 386.5 billion won. Sales of services for enterprise customers increased 9.2 percent to 407.1 billion won, with strong growth in demand for data centers and cloud products. Sales from data centers grew 33.2 percent to 49.4 billion won as two more centers opened in Bundang, Gyeonggi. The cloud business skyrocketed 67.6 percent to 39.8 billion won.

Monthly active users of SKT's metaverse service, ifland, stood at 4.2 million as of June, up 7.69 percent from 3.9 million in March.

Meanwhile, fellow mobile carrier LG Uplus reported a better-than-expected operating profit of 288 billion won in the second quarter, up 16 percent on year. Sales grew 1.3 percent to 3.43 trillion won and net profit jumped 31.7 percent to 213.3 billion won.

LG Uplus announced its vision to become one of the top three leaders in the domestic electric vehicle charger market. The telecom company and Kakao Mobility each invested 25 billion won to establish a joint venture last month.

"In the new joint venture, LG Uplus's role is to expand the business service to come up with an appropriate business model to effectively operate the EV chargers," LG Uplus's Chief Strategy Officer Kwon Yong-hyun said during an online conference call on Tuesday. "We will start building the chargers in in-demand areas such as near apartment complexes and will expand into other business realms. Through this strategy, we strive to reach the goal of becoming one of the top three competitors in the domestic EV charger market."

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]