KT Corp.’s headquarters in central Seoul is seen in this file photo taken Nov. 3, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — KT Corp., a South Korean telecom giant, said Tuesday its third-quarter net income rose 46.9 percent from a year earlier on the back of robust growth of 5G network subscribers as well as its media content businesses.
Net income for the July-September period stood at 337.7 billion won (US$286.7 million) on a consolidated basis, compared with a net profit of 229.9 billion won the previous year, according to a company statement.
Operating income reached 382.4 billion won, up 30 percent over the cited period, while revenue rose 3.6 percent to 6.21 trillion won.
The telecom giant cited broad growth across its businesses for the improved bottom line.
Revenue from KT’s wireless service rose 3 percent on-year to 1.79 trillion won in the third quarter thanks to increased 5G subscribers.
As of the end of September, KT’s 5G subscriptions stood at around 5.6 million, compared with 5 million the previous quarter.
The telecom operator added that its artificial intelligence and digital transformation division, which includes its internet data center business, saw solid growth, with sales rising 29.7 percent on-year to 161.2 billion won in the July-September period.
The company aims to expand the portion of revenue from its B2B digital transformation business from the current 39 percent to 50 percent by 2025.
KT said in a conference call it will strive to provide stable network services to prevent the recurrence of the outage that crippled businesses across South Korea last month.
Compensation costs for the nationwide disruption will be included in the fourth-quarter earnings, the company said.
Revenue from KT’s content subsidiaries, which include media production-focused KT Studio Genie and video streaming platform Seezn, rose 24.6 percent to 241.6 billion won over the same period.
Sales in its real estate subsidiary KT estate Ltd. also jumped 46.1 percent to 111.3 billion won over the same period.
Shares in KT rose 1.14 percent to 30,950 won, outperforming the broader KOSPI’s 0.08 percent gain. The company reported its third-quarter earnings before the market closed.
(Yonhap)
