[Concall] KT Responds to Facility Investment Criticism: "This Year's Annual Level Similar to Last Year"

"Stable Operational Foundation for Telco Business"

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] KT stated on the 9th during the Q3 earnings conference call that it will "continue to execute capital expenditures (CAPEX) investments."

In response to criticism that CAPEX investments were insufficient up to Q3, KT said, "On an annual basis, it is at a flat (stable) level," adding, "CAPEX is the foundation for the stable operation of the telco business, and we will continue to execute CAPEX investments focusing on DigiCo business investments."

KT's separate CAPEX scale for Q3 is a cumulative 1.4648 trillion KRW. Of this, 730.5 billion KRW was spent on subscriber networks, 228.3 billion KRW on backbone networks, 217.9 billion KRW on enterprise communications, and 288.1 billion KRW on other sectors. This is more than 300 billion KRW less compared to 1.784 trillion KRW spent in the first three quarters of last year.

At the beginning of this year, during the 2020 earnings conference call, KT announced that it expected this year’s CAPEX investment scale to be "similar to the previous year." However, it added a caveat that the composition would increase the investment ratio in growth sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), digital transformation (DX), and media.

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