[Photo by Lee Seung-hwan]

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SK telecom (SKT) saw its consolidated third-quarter operating profit jump nearly 20 percent from a year ago on flourishing 5G-backed media, data center and cloud services.

The operating profit for the July-September period came to 465.6 billion won ($340 million), up by 18.46 percent from the same period a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing Thursday.

Sales grew 3.05 percent on year to 4.34 trillion won but net profit fell 66.65 percent to 245.6 billion won as it no longer can enjoy gains from its equity in SK hynix after the chipmaker went under investment-only holding company SK square.

On a non-consolidated basis, sales for the quarter amounted to 3.12 trillion won and operating profit 388.7 billion won, up by 3.1 percent and 21.6 percent, respectively, from a year ago.

Net profit soared 92.6 percent on year to 305.1 billion won thanks to a one-time gain from the sale of its stake in Hana Card.

SKT said that continued growth in media and B2B areas led to substantial results in the quarter based on its stable cash cow of wired and wireless business.

The number of SKT’s 5G subscribers reached 12.47 million at the end of September, taking up 53 percent of total subscribers in Korea.

Media business sales grew 20.6 percent on year to 395.6 billion won, while sales from data center and cloud services, the key to its B2B business, added 8.9 percent to 378.5 billion won. Sales for the first three quarters in its B2B frontier topped 1 trillion won for the first time.

From AI-driven platform AIVERSE business, the total sales of subscription products in the third quarter reached 150 billion won, continuing growth for three consecutive quarters.

The company attracted 12.8 million users of its metaverse service ifland on a cumulative basis at end-September.

SKT also set the third quarter dividend at 830 won per share as it did for the previous two quarters. Shares edged down 0.4 percent to 51,000 won.

By Pulse

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