KT, South Korea's primary telecom operator, plans to invest 10.4 trillion won ($10.1 billion) by 2010 to upgrade its infrastructures and foster new businesses. The company also expands its business horizon to the digital contents industry by acquiring Sidus FNH, the country's leading movie studio and entertainers' management company. KT president Nam Joong-soo, who took the reins of the entity last month, made the points during his first press conference after his inauguration. "We look to channel 7.8 trillion won into building new telecom networks and upgrading legacy ones. With 2.6 trillion won we will nurture new growth engines by 2010," the 50-year-old chief executive said. Nam expected the large-scale investment would induce roughly 67,000 new job openings and related productions worth 41.8 trillion won. Through the spending, KT aims to expand its annual sales to 17 trillion won by 2010 from last year's 11.9 trillion won. More specific mid-term targets are likely to be announced late this year. The ex-monopoly has gained breathtaking growth rates in the late 1990s but its expansion slowed down because its business portfolio is composed of fixed-line telephones and the high-speed Internet, of which markets already hit saturation points. Accordingly, the carrier's revenue growth clips are now at a snail's pace from 11.7 trillion won in 2002 to 11.6 trillion won in 2003 and 11.9 trillion won last year. This year's turnover goal is also 11.9 trillion won. Early this month, the firm cut its full-year operating profit guidance to 1.8 trillion won from 2.1 trillion won. KT accounts for 93.4 percent of the country's 23 million landline telephony service subscribers and carves our more than half of 12 million broadband customers. Considering Korea has just 15.5 million households, the traditional revenue source duo are unlikely to provide a further growth momentum nor high profit margins. Mindful of the quagmire, Nam said it would diversify its businesses not only into info-tech realms but also non-IT sectors. "Our top priority is to cater for the needs of end-users by providing highly customized services. This way, we can tap into non-IT businesses," Nam said. The acquisition of Cidus appears to be the first step to make KT's presence felt outside IT, conducted under the stewardship of Nam, former president of KT's wireless unit KTF. Nam said KT will funnel 28 billion won to buy a 51-percent stake of the nation's primary film studio that produced 40 flicks starting 1995 and attracted a total of 51 million moviegoers over the cited period. "This deal means KT has become a digital entertainment firm. Even though we have just delivered contents through our networks, we will make the contents in collaboration with our partners from now on," Nam said. The move also seems to be spurred by KT's ferocious rival SK Telecom, the biggest wireless carrier that makes relentless inroads into the digital contents realm. It snapped up local entertainment company IHQ in March and took over YBM Seoul Record in May to secure music content. In addition, Nam said that KT will put a ceiling on the number of its mobile phone service subscribers at the current level of 2.3 million, or about 6.2 percent of the total market, as concerns have flared up over it of late. In cooperation with its subsidiary KTF, KT has signed up users for mobile telephony services but the endeavor has invited criticism from other mobile carriers that KT unfairly capitalizes on its wide-ranging fixed-line customer networks.