Home > Business > Industry

SKT, LG U+ ring up wildly different earnings after year hacking incidents

Published: 05 Feb. 2026, 19:21

A pedestrian passes by the LG U+ headquarters in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Dec. 7, 2025. [YONHAP]

The fallout from last year’s hacking incidents sent mobile carriers’ earnings swinging sharply, with LG U+ posting record-high revenue while SK Telecom (SKT) saw its operating profit plunge.

LG U+ said on Thursday that its revenue reached 15.45 trillion won ($10.55 billion) last year on a consolidated basis, up 5.7 percent from a year earlier. It marked the first time the company’s annual revenue surpassed the 15 trillion won mark. Operating profit rose 3.4 percent to 892.1 billion won, while net profit surged 61.9 percent to 509.2 billion won.

Growth in the mobile business drove the strong performance. The total number of subscription lines, including both mobile network operators and budget carriers, or mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services, reached 30.71 million. Industry observers attributed part of the growth to the impact of a series of large-scale personal data breaches at SKT and KT last year. The MVNO segment has recorded annual growth of more than 10 percent for seven consecutive years since 2019. If the trend continues, LG U+ could exceed a 20 percent share of the mobile market in the first half of this year, analysts said.

The company’s AI data center business also expanded. Revenue from the AI data center segment within the corporate infrastructure division rose 18.4 percent on year to 422 billion won. An LG U+ representative said the company plans to accelerate its AI transformation by actively utilizing LG’s generative AI model Exaone, which posted strong results under the government-led sovereign AI foundation model project.

A pedestrian walks by an SK Telecom store in Seoul on Nov. 21, 2025. [NEWS1]

SKT, meanwhile, reported revenue of 17.1 trillion won and operating profit of 1.07 trillion won last year, down 4.7 percent and 41.1 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. The declines were largely attributed to subscriber losses and rising follow-up costs related to a massive SIM card hacking incident last year. Following its decision to waive early termination fees, SKT lost about 650,000 subscribers.

Operating profit for last year’s fourth quarter alone fell 53.1 percent on year to 119.1 billion won, reflecting one-off labor costs such as large severance payments tied to organizational restructuring across SKT and SK Broadband.

SKT said that with one-off expenses and compensation related to the hacking incident now largely settled, it expects revenue to return to a recovery track this year. The company said it aims to restore profitability to pre-incident levels by expanding its AI-driven businesses, citing its recent advancement to the second phase of the government’s sovereign AI foundation model project.

KT is scheduled to announce its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings for 2025 next Tuesday. The impact of KT’s own fee waiver measures, announced last month, will be reflected in its first quarter results this year.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY CHANG YOON-SEO [[email protected]]