This file photo taken Aug. 25, 2020, shows the lobby of SK Group’s office building in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s largest wireless carrier, said Wednesday its net profit dropped 60.8 percent last year from a year earlier due mainly to the exclusion of its equity gains from its chipmaking affiliate.
The company logged a net profit of 947.8 billion won (US$754.6 million) on a consolidated basis in 2022, down from 2.5 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Operating profit went up 16.2 percent on-year to 1.6 trillion won last year, and annual sales increased 3 percent to 17.3 trillion won over the cited period.
The company said its on-year decrease in net profit is mainly blamed on the exclusion of equity gains from SK hynix Inc., following the handover of its stake in the chipmaker to SK Square Co. in 2021.
The company saw its 5G service subscribers reach 13.39 million, accounting for more than half of its total mobile handset subscriptions.
SK Telecom said sales of its enterprise business, which provides data center and cloud-related services, grew 12.5 percent to 1.5 trillion won last year, while its media business posted 1.5 trillion won in sales, up 20.8 percent from a year earlier.
For the fourth quarter, its revenue increased 2.3 percent to 4.39 trillion won.
It posted net profit of 223.7 billion won for the three month period ending December, down 28.9 percent from a year earlier, while its operating profit rose 13.5 percent on-year to 254.5 billion won.
The fourth-quarter earnings exceeded market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts stood at 179.3 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of Yonhap News Agency.
Shares in SK Telecom stayed unchanged at 46,700 won on the main Seoul bourse on Wednesday, underperforming the broader KOSPI’s 1.3 percent gain.
(Yonhap)
