SK Telecom — BrandWiki

SK Telecom

Overview

SK Telecom Co., Ltd. 에스케이텔레콤주식회사

industry
type	Public
traded as	nyse: SKM
foundation	(as Korea Mobile Telecommunications) 1997 (as SK Telecom)
parent	SK Inc.
area served	South Korea
location	Jung District, Seoul, South Korea
key people	(CEO)‡R1R‡

products	Wireless telecom Cellular internet Internet Mobile platform Internet of things

revenue	▲ 17.95 trillion (2024, consolidated)‡R2R‡

num employees	40,543

subsid	see this list

homepage	https://sktelecom.com

SK Telecom Co., Ltd., abbreviated as SKT, ( or ) is a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator and former film distributor and is part of the SK Group, one of the country's largest chaebols. It leads the local market with 50.5 percent share as of 2008.[3] SK Telecom is the largest wireless carrier in South Korea, with 23 million subscribers as of Q4 2023.[4]

Since its creation in 1984, the company has evolved from a first generation analog cellular system, to second generation CDMA, then to the world's first third-generation synchronized IMT-2000 cellular system. SK Telecom also became the world's first carrier to commercialize HSDPA in May 2006. SK expanded into the landline market by acquiring second-rated fixed-line operator Hanaro Telecom in February 2008.[5]

The company's online brands include Nate, a web portal, June, a mobile multimedia service, Moneta, an e-banking mobile app, Nate Drive, a telematics service, and Digital Home, an online interface to remote-control household appliances.[6]

In 2004, SK Telecom launched Hanbyul, the world's first DMB satellite. TU Media, SK Telecom's digital media arm, handles DMB TV broadcasts.

In November 2015, SK Telecom announced signing a deal to acquire CJ HelloVision, the country's largest cable and Internet operator, with the view to merge it with its own cable unit, SK Broadband.[7] The acquisition, which will make SK Broadband the second largest cable broadcaster following KT,[8] is opposed by competitors, who charge that the merger will help SK unfairly dominate the market.[9][10]

History

SK Telecom was established in March 1984 under the name Korea Mobile Telecommunications Services Corp. (KMTSC; ), but was renamed Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corp. (KMTC; ) in May 1988. It was a subsidiary of the state monopoly phone company, Korea Telecom (now known as KT Corp.) until KT sold it off in 1994.[11] In June 1994 SK Group (Formerly Sunkyong Group) became Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corporation's largest shareholder. KMTC officially joined the SK Group in January 1997 and changed its name to SK Telecom in March of that year.

In October 2000, SK Telecom became the second operator in the world after NTT DoCoMo to launch a commercial 3G service using W-CDMA technology. In January 2002, this was followed up by launching the world's first CDMA2000 1xEV-DO network, offering greatly increased data transmission speeds to preexisting 2G networks.

In May 2005, SK Telecom divested 60 percent of SK Teletech stock to cellphone maker Pantech.[12] SK remains the second largest shareholder by holding on to the rest of Teletech's stock.

Corporate governance

As of April 6, 2023.

Services

As of August 2020, SK Telecom operates 2G IS-95/CDMA 2000, 3G WCDMA/HSPA+, 4G Mobile WiMAX, LTE, and 5G networks.

The 2G network supports CDMA (IS-95A/B), CDMA2000, and EV-DO. EV-DO handsets are marked with its service name "June". The 3G network supports WCDMA, HSPA, and HSPA+. SK Telecom has the best HSPA+ coverage in South Korea. HSPA+ is available in 50+ major cities and towns, while KT HSPA+ is available in selected metropolitan areas. 3.9G LTE, which uses both band 5 and band 3, supports multi-carrier technology, which SK Telecom claims to be the first operator to offer.

From May 2005 to September 2012, SK Telecom provided S-DMB through its subsidiary TU Media (later SK Telink). S-DMB service was ceased in September 2012 after significant losses in its final years.[31]

In 2022, SK Telecom announced a partnership with Joby Aviation with the goal to create a line of flying taxis for the South Korean market by 2025.

International markets

SK Telecom is currently putting its efforts in expanding into global markets, such as Vietnam, U.S., China and the Philippines. The company is also forging strategic alliances with other global carriers and IT businesses.

China

In 2000, SK Telecom first entered China, later forming a joint venture with China Unicom for wireless Internet service in February 2004. This joint venture between a foreign and local company, UNISK, is the first of its kind in China.

In 2006, SK Telecom bought $1 billion worth of convertible bonds of China Unicom Hong Kong, a division of China Unicom and agreed to cooperate in joint sourcing of handsets, development of additional services, platform development, marketing and distribution, customer relationship management, and network development. One result of this partnership is jointly developing handsets to be sourced by Samsung, LG, and Motorola.

In August 2006, SK Telecom signed an MoU making it the first non-Chinese company to participate in the TD-SCDMA Project.

Subsidiaries

SK Telecom has a number of subsidiaries that support its growth. In 2006, SK Communications expanded into new markets with an enhanced version of Korea's leading social networking site Cyworld. At home, NateOn is the leading messenger service with more than 13 million users as of 2006. SK Telink, the international telephony division, launched international Korean SMS messaging in the U.S., today it operates in more than 170 countries. TU Media, the nationwide satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) service, is also making fast growth, attracting over one million subscribers in 2006.

NetsGo

With Thrunet and Hanaro controlling nearly half of the growing high-speed Internet market, SK Telecom entered the market in late 1999 with Dream NetsGo, a cable Internet provider that offered its services in a partnership with local cable TV operator Dreamcity Media. It provided Internet access at a speed of up to 10 Mbit/s using the cable TV network, which had 120,000 subscribers at the time.[40] In 2002 NetsGo merged with Lycos Korea to form SK Communications.

SK Broadband

Founded as Hanaro Telecom, Inc. in 1997 and was the only fixed-line and cable operator beside the state-owned

SK Sports

SK is a major sponsor in domestic professional sports.[51] It also owns the esports team T1, as part of a cooperation with Comcast Spectacor.[52]

One of SK Telecom's major corporate rivals is KT Corporation. Match-ups between teams owned by both companies are dubbed the "Telecommunications Derby" by the media.[55][56] The rivalry is contested in esports and men's basketball. When SK owned a baseball team, the term was also applied to match-ups between SK Wyverns and KT Wiz.[57] Due to KT Wiz being a relatively new franchise and having a poor record for much of its early years, the "rivalry" was largely one-sided and given less attention compared to esports and basketball, where such match-ups are generally hotly contested affairs.

External links

SK Telecom T world website
SK Telecom Americas website (English)

References

Board of Directors SK Telecom, retrieved 4 November 2024^
SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (SKM) Income Statement Yahoo! Finance, retrieved 22 July 2025^
Lee Sun-young. Mobile operators pressured to cut call, message rates The Korea Herald, naver.com, May 5, 2008, retrieved May 8, 2008

1984–1993: early years

Founded on March 29, 1984, as Korea Mobile Telecommunications Services Corp., the state-owned carrier introduced pagers and car phones to the Korean market. May 1984 saw the launch of the car phone service. Korea Mobile changed its name to Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corp. (KMTC) in May 1988. In July, AMPS cellular network was initially launched in Seoul metropolitan area. By 1991 nationwide coverage was complete.

In April 1993, the South Korean government, through KMTC, adopted CDMA as the national cellular telephone system.[13]

1994–1996: privatization and the CDMA standard

Through privatization, SK Group became Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corp.'s largest shareholder in June 1994. In October 1994, Korea's first CDMA system was introduced to the public for the first time.

In January 1995, KMTC reached the one million subscriber mark. Korea Mobile Telecommunications became the third Korean firm to be listed on the NYSE exchange (ADR) in June 1996. Later that year South Korea got its first commercial CDMA (IS-95A) network. Operating in Seoul in October, it is considered one of the world's earliest commercial CDMA networks.

1997–2000: international expansion

SK Group completed its takeover of KMTC in January 1997, as it became the world's sixth carrier to attain ten million subscriptions. Around that time, it also began constructing the Northeast Asian CDMA belt encompassing China, Japan, Vietnam, and the rest of the Asian continent.

In March 1997, to reflect new changes, KMTC changed its name to SK Telecom, and in October, NetsGo, an online service, was launched.

In June 1998, SK Telink, the international call service division, started offering commercial overseas call service. In December 1998, SK Teletech launched its first handset. In April 1999, SK Telecom entered the Mongolian market by co-founding Skytel LLC with nearly 30 percent ownership stake. TTL, a wireless plan targeting younger users, and nTOP, a cellular internet service were launched in July and October 1999, respectively. In December 1999, SK Telecom surpassed ten million subscriber mark, the following month, it launched the world's first commercial CDMA2000 service. By the end of the year the carrier won a contract for asynchronous IMT-2000 (WCDMA) facility.[14]

2001–2007: cellular internet and market accrual

The new millennium ushered in an era of cross-platform online networks that saw efforts to integrate mobile services, as SK Telecom was exploring new value-creating models such as m-Commerce and satellite DMB Service.

In January 2002, an acquisition of Shinsegi Telecomm Inc. was completed.[15] In the same month also, the company deployed world's first commercial synchronous IMT-2000 facility. In March 2002, the carrier struck international roaming deals between countries using CDMA and GSM networks. An agreement was signed with Israel's Pele-Phone in April to sell proprietary software that will operate on the carrier's existing CDMA network and future 1x-CDMA network.[16] In July, a MoU was signed with China Unicom to establish a joint venture. In November two mobile applications 'June' and 'Moneta' were launched. In July 2003, S-Fone, a commercial CDMA network became operative in Vietnam. In August 2003, June became the world's first 3G service to have one million subscribers.

In February 2004, SK won a contract for a joint venture with China Unicom, called UNISK.

2008–present: landline and new technologies

In November 2008, SK signed an agreement to buy a controlling stake of fixed-line phone company Hanaro Telecom for from a consortium led by AIG and Newbridge Capital. The new entity will be the second-largest telecom firm in terms of total assets and revenues next to KT Corp.[17]

In 2013 SK Telecom was the world's first operator to offer a commercial LTE-Advanced network under the brand name bandLTE. This coincided with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A model, which offered a step-up CPU (Snapdragon 800 vs. Snapdragon 600 used in the regular model) and also LTE-Advanced capabilities. SK Telecom supported this handset at launch.[18]

On July 6, 2013, it was reported that Apple was in talks with SK Telecom to release the iPhone 5s model on SK's LTE Advanced network.[19]

Cybersecurity breach of 2021-2025

On April 18, 2025, SK Telecom informed authorities of a data leak, with full scope of the leak being unknown at the time. The information leaked in this incident includes the USIM authentication key (KI), International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), device identifier (IMEI), and phone numbers.[25]

In response to the breach, SK announced that all of its 23 million subscribers would be eligible for a free USIM card replacement starting from April 28, a week after the company publicly acknowledged the hack. Those who replaced their USIM earlier would be eligible for a refund.[26] However, SK Telecom currently has only 1 million USIM cards available, leading to shortages and customer frustrations. Acting President Han Duck-soo directed related agencies to investigate SK Telecom's hacking countermeasures. SK said they are developing a way to format USIM cards without physically replacing them.[27][28]

In July 2025, Korean Ministry of Science and ICT released a final report of the investigation.[29]

SK Telecom

History

Corporate governance

Services

International markets

China

Subsidiaries

NetsGo

SK Broadband

SK Sports

See also

External links

References

1984–1993: early years

1994–1996: privatization and the CDMA standard

1997–2000: international expansion

2001–2007: cellular internet and market accrual

2008–present: landline and new technologies

Cybersecurity breach of 2021-2025

United States

Helio

Mobile Money Ventures

SK Telecom Americas Innopartners

Helio

Mobile Money Ventures

SK Telecom Americas Innopartners

Vietnam

Philippines

SK Communications

SK Planet

SK Telink

TU Media

SK Square