KT (Chairman Hwang Chang-kyu) announced on August 3rd that it recorded sales of 5.14 billion dollars and operating profits of 353.8 million dollars in the second quarter of 2018.
Compared with the second quarter of last year, revenues from the wired business declined while revenues for its media and contents sector continued to increase by double-digits. Furthermore, its ultra-fast internet showed steady growth.
Despite the negative factors such as increased discount rate and reduced rates from the selected contract, sales of wireless services decreased 0.7% year-on-year and increased 0.3% quarter-on-quarter to 1.52 billion dollars in the second quarter of this year with more than 220,000 mobile subscribers from April to June. In particular, the ‘Data ON’ plan, which was newly introduced in May, is gaining great popularity by exceeding 500,000 subscribers within one month after increasing the benefits for users based on data usage pattern.
Fixed-line sales decreased by 2.4% compared to the first half of last year to 1.45 million dollars. Fixed-line phone sales are steadily decreasing due to decrease in usage and growth of the Giga-Internet. Giga-Internet subscribers exceeded 4.5 million by the end of July of this year, accounting for 52% of KT’s high-speed Internet broadband subscribers.
Media and contents sales posted sales of 538.5 million dollars, jumping 7.6% year-on-year on the back of increased numbers of IPTV service users and increase of subsidiaries such as Genie Music.
The Financial business sales recorded 772.5 million dollars, partially recovering from the decline in the purchase of China Union Card. Sales from other services increased 1.9% year-on-year to 531.7 million dollars due to strong business activity at the Internet Data Center (IDC).
KT is accelerating the development of new growth engines in the upcoming 5G era in the area of services and platforms based on innovative technologies. ‘KT Network Blockchain’, which was introduced in July of this year, has greatly increased processing speed and security by applying blockchain technology to commercial network. Starting with real-time innovation such as management of local currency and electronics documents, KT plans to promote changes in domestic industries by combining with wireless/wired infrastructure, 5G, and with the five major platform businesses such as media, energy, finance, security and public enterprises.
“We were able to expand our subscriber base through service innovation in core businesses such as wireless, fixed-line and media. In the second half of the year, we will foster new growth engines in the platform business of innovative technology such as AI and blockchain in preparation for the upcoming 5G era,” said Yoon Kyoung-keun, KT’s CFO.
