[Click e Stocks] SK Telecom, High Growth Expected with Portfolio Restructuring Focused on 5 Major Business Sectors

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jaehee] Samsung Securities maintained its buy rating and target price of 74,000 KRW for SK Telecom on the 10th.

SK Telecom's first quarterly results announced after the spin-off showed consolidated sales of 4.2978 trillion KRW and operating profit of 226.7 billion KRW in the fourth quarter of last year, meeting market expectations.

Minha Choi, a researcher at Samsung Securities, analyzed, "Sales increased by 1.5% quarter-on-quarter due to subscriber growth, continuing the wireless revenue growth trend, but operating profit during the same period fell by 50.2% due to one-time costs such as employee stock bonuses (75 billion KRW) related to the spin-off, seasonal expenses, and promotional costs related to T Universe."

At the end of last year, SK Telecom's 5G subscribers reached 9.87 million, an increase of 1.22 million from the previous quarter, achieving the target. SK Broadband's sales increased by 5.2% year-on-year due to growth in B2C subscribers and expansion of B2B business performance, but operating profit decreased by 14.3% to 57.4 billion KRW during the same period. This was due to one-time costs related to employee stock compensation.

SK Telecom projected consolidated sales of 17.4 trillion KRW for this year. Announcing the start of the SKT 2.0 era, SK Telecom redefined its business portfolio centered on five major business groups. The five business groups are ▲ wired and wireless communications ▲ media ▲ enterprise ▲ AIVERS (a compound of AI and Universe) ▲ connected intelligence. In particular, SK Telecom expects continued high growth in the media, enterprise, and AIVERS businesses.

Researcher Choi stated, "In addition to the stable performance flow of wired and wireless communication businesses due to subscriber growth, media and enterprise will strengthen growth potential," and added, "An increase in dividends is also expected due to profit growth."

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