SK Telecom "Social Value 1.87 Trillion Won... Up 8.3% Year-on-Year"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Cho] SK Telecom announced on the 31st that it created social value (Social Value, SV) worth 1.8709 trillion KRW last year. This represents an 8.3% increase compared to the previous year (1.727 trillion KRW).

SK Telecom made every effort to create various SVs such as building social safety nets, contributing to the national economy, and solving social issues by utilizing ICT infrastructure and technology. As a result, economic indirect contribution performance increased by 1.6581 trillion KRW (+0.7%), business social performance by 147.5 billion KRW (+627%), and social contribution social performance by 38.3 billion KRW (+12.9%). However, the environmental fairness area showed an expanded negative margin, indicating a need for improvement.

Looking at the results in detail, the ‘business social performance’ increased by 627% compared to the previous year. This area includes ‘quality of life,’ ‘labor,’ ‘mutual growth,’ and ‘environment’ sectors.

In particular, the SV in the ‘quality of life’ sector was measured at 161.8 billion KRW, a 282% increase from the previous year. SK Telecom explained, "The value generated by a significant increase in T map driving habit-linked insurance subscribers and a decrease in personal accident rates more than doubled compared to the previous year." They added, "Newly reflected achievements as part of building social safety nets include emergency safety alerts through the AI care service for elderly living alone, reduction of depression, prevention of traffic accidents through real-time sudden braking alerts on highways, and shortening of arrest periods through advanced tracking of criminals’ locations." The SV created in the labor and mutual growth sectors recorded 24.2 billion KRW and 60.8 billion KRW, respectively.

The increase in ‘economic indirect contribution performance,’ which is linked to financial value, was modest. Employment and dividend components of this category increased by 11.3% and 1.8%, respectively, but tax payments decreased by 25.7% due to reduced profits from large-scale 5G investments. Social contribution social performance increased by nearly 13%, reflecting activities such as early disaster recovery efforts including emergency communication facility setups at wildfire and typhoon sites in Sokcho and Goseong, as well as expanded donations.

SK Telecom also explained that there are areas that need continuous improvement. The environmental fairness sector showed a performance of (-)104.5 billion KRW, an expanded negative margin compared to (-)95 billion KRW the previous year. However, they noted efforts to improve by applying power-saving technology during 5G deployment and upgrading LTE and 3G networks for low power consumption, which increased total equipment volume by 23% but adjusted the performance scale to about 10%.

SK Telecom plans to expand eco-friendly technology development and equipment deployment, as well as the distribution of building energy management systems based on these results. They will also strengthen eco-friendly activities in product and service areas, such as recycling used mobile phones, reducing plastic emissions, and introducing electronic subscription forms in distribution channels.

Starting this year, SK Telecom will survey SV areas that major stakeholders consider important to timely assess socially desired activities and utilize the findings for strategic planning. This means they will listen more closely to stakeholders’ opinions rather than focusing solely on areas the company deems important, to accurately determine which activities to strengthen.

In a related in-depth survey, customers, partners, shareholders, and employees expressed that SK Telecom should focus on activities in the areas of quality of life, employment, tax payments, and environment. Based on this, SK Telecom plans to strengthen new SV activities such as solving social problems using digital technologies like 5G and AI, building social safety nets through convergence security and real-time monitoring, and expanding untact services to achieve simultaneous growth in economic and social value.

Park Jung-ho, CEO of SK Telecom, stated, “We will promote new social value activities that innovate the digital life paradigm to fit the untact society and daily life changed by COVID-19,” adding, “We will explore all possible measures to develop new social safety net services so that the nation and society can overcome crises early through ICT.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.