SK Telecom President Park Jung-ho. (Photo: SK Telecom)

SK Telecom President Park Jung-ho, who took office in 2017, was reelected at a general shareholders’ meeting at SK Telecom headquarters in Seoul on March 26. His second term is until March 2023. He is now tasked with catapulting SK Telecom into an integrated ICT company leader.

SK Telecom convened a general shareholders’ meeting and approved President Park’s reelection as inside director.

At the meeting, President Park said telecom service provider and ICT company have different behavior methods, and two brains are needed to operate SKT.

Under the stewardship of President Park, SK Telecom reorganized its operation by dividing it into a telecom business and a new business like media, security and commerce.

President Park said SK Telecom has a strategy of “catching two rabbits” - improving the business performance of the telecom business and expanding customers of the new business. He also disclosed his intention to secure “super collaboration” with other companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

He resolved his intention to translate crises into opportunities. SK Telecom was dealt a severe blow as the spread of the novel coronavirus led to a reduction in roaming services for clients traveling overseas.

President Park said SK Telecom is researching new businesses such as “T-Phone,” enabling numerous people to make calls at the same time utilizing face recognition security services.

“SK Telecom has a three-stage response scenario, and the COVID-19 pandemic will serve as an opportunity to test-operate businesses and achieve a dramatic digital transformation in earnest,” he said.

 
Park hinted at a possibility of delaying SK Broadband’s initial public offering. He disclosed a plan to list two subsidiaries of SK Telecom, including SK Broadband, at a New Year’s gathering in January.

General shareholders meeting also approved Cho Dae-shin and Ahn Jung-ho’s reelection as non-standing managing director and outside director-cum auditor, respectively, as well as appointing Kim Joon-mo as a new outside director.

The move changed the structure of SK Telecom’s board of directors to an eight member- one consisting two inside directors, a non-standing managing director and five outside directors.

The general shareholders’ meeting passed the 2019 financial statement in which SK Telecom posted 17.743.7 trillion won in sales, 1.11 trillion won in operating profit, and 861.9 trillion won in net profit. It decided 10,000 won per share in cash dividend, including a 1,000 won dividend that had been paid out last August.

SK Telecom Announces 5G Achievements and Plans on the First Anniversary of 5G Launch

SK Telecom achieved a 5G milestone since launching the world’s first 5G service on April 3, 2019, and announces plans going forward

According to the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, SK Telecom has established itself as the leader in the 5G market with around 2.22 million subscribers and 44.7% market share.

With its strong performance in 5G, SK Telecom continues to maintain the unrivaled market leadership it secured since launching 2G service in Korea.

SK Telecom increased customers’ 5G experience and acceptance by creating around 70 5G Clusters in key commercial districts and densely populated areas throughout the nation.

To date, around 1 million customers visited 5G Clusters to experience differentiated 5G services including ‘Jump AR Zoo’ and ‘5G LoL Park.’

5G Clusters are built with more base stations than other 5G coverage areas to offer optimal 5G environment for services like AR and VR.

According to SK Telecom’s analysis on 5G subscribers, people in their 30s and 40s are taking up 53% of the company’s total 5G subscriber base, which is significantly higher than the proportion of people in their 30s and 40s in total LTE subscriber base, which currently stands at 32%.

The total data consumption of SK Telecom’s 5G subscribers reached 62,000 TB per month on average from December 2019 through February 2020.

During the same period, the average monthly data usage of subscribers who switched devices from LTE to 5G has increased about twofold from 14.5 GB (LTE) to 28.5 GB (5G) per person.

SK Telecom’s 5G subscribers are found to be using media services, which generally require greater speeds and bandwidths, much more actively than LTE subscribers.

As of February 2020, 5G subscribers are using 7 times more VR services, 3.6 times more video steaming services and 2.7 times more game apps than LTE subscribers.