Backed by growth of New ICT sectors such as media & IoT, revenue increased by 2.5% compared to last year
Plans to realize early 5G commercialization and achieve high earnings in New ICT sector
 
Seoul, South Korea, February 5, 2018 – SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) announced today the company’s earnings on a K-IFRS consolidated basis of 2017: revenue of KRW 17.520 trillion, operating income of KRW 1.537 trillion, and net income of KRW 2.658 trillion.
 
Backed by sales increase in its media and IoT sectors, SK Telecom’s revenue increased by 2.5%, compared to the same period last year. For the first time since 2014, it achieved a successful sales turnaround.
 
Thanks to the improved performance of its subsidiary, 11st, and the growth in its media business, its operating income edged slightly by 0.1%. In the meantime, its net income jumped by a whopping 60.1% compared to last year due to increased equity method gains backed by SK Hynix’s continuous strong sales performance.
 
In 2017, SK Telecom focused on solidifying its leadership in mobile telecommunications industry and securing new growth engines in New ICT sectors, which include media, IoT, commerce, AI and so forth.
 
Despite the rise in contract-based mobile fee discounts, SK Telecom’s mobile telecommunications sector remained strong, thanks to the increased number of LTE subscribers and mobile data usage.   
 
Its total number of subscribers surpassed 30.2 million at the end of 2017, reaching the 30-million-subscriber threshold. Among them, the LTE users surpassed 22.87 million, making up 75.7% of the total subscribers. Mobile data usage per LTE subscriber also rose by 0.8GB, compared to last year to record 6.0GB. 
 
In the New ICT industry, SK Broadband recorded annual revenue of KRW 3.501 trillion, went up by 3.6 % compared to last year, thanks to increasing subscriber numbers of Giga Internet and IPTV as well as boost in VoD sales. Moreover, SK Telecom ‘s other revenues including sales in IoT solutions also increased by 10.8%, recording KRW 978.7 billion.
 
Going forward, SK Telecom successfully solidified its position in the AI industry by   launching the nation’s first AI speaker “NUGU.” As of December 2017, NUGU’s monthly active users jumped 19 times to 2.11 million from 110,000 in August. 
 
For this year, SK Telecom aims to achieve remarkable earnings outcome in New ICT and sharpen its competitiveness in 5G technology. To that end, the company will strive to realize an early, nation-wide commercialization of 5G network, allowing its customers to enjoy various conveniences by taking advantage of 5G technology which can turn the real, off-line world into an ICT society.
 
“Despite tough mobile telecommunications market condition last year, SK Telecom managed to bring about visible outcomes in new growth engine areas as a leading New ICT company," said Ryu Young-Sang, Executive Vice President, Corporate Center of SK Telecom. "The situation is unlikely to change this year but we will continue to realize growth in the New ICT sector with some bold approaches."

※  All business performance figures are based on Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS).