Hwang Hyun-sik, CEO of LGU+, "Regulation on Budget Phone Market Share Is Not Desirable"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] Hwang Hyun-sik, CEO of LG Uplus, expressed dissatisfaction with the government's move to regulate the market share of MVNO subsidiaries, saying it is "not desirable."

On the 17th, CEO Hwang made these remarks during a meeting with reporters after the regular shareholders' meeting.

Hwang Hyun-sik, CEO of LG Uplus, is answering reporters' questions after the regular shareholders' meeting on the 17th.
[Photo by Oh Su-yeon]

The Ministry of Science and ICT mentioned the possibility of regulating the market share of MVNO subsidiaries of the three major telecom companies at the 'MVNO Competitiveness Enhancement Meeting' held on the 10th. LG Uplus has two MVNO subsidiaries: MediaLog and LG HelloVision.

He also shared his opinion on the issue of employee performance bonuses. LG Uplus recorded its highest performance last year by surpassing 1 trillion KRW in annual operating profit for the first time. However, the performance bonuses were cut in half, causing dissatisfaction internally. CEO Hwang said, "Performance evaluations need to be viewed from various angles, but compared to our targets and competitors, the evaluation was low, which caused this situation. I sincerely apologize to the employees who worked hard, but since this is related to the principles set at the beginning of last year, there is nothing we can do."

LG Uplus recently experienced a personal information leak affecting 290,000 customers and a service disruption caused by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Last month, the company announced measures to completely overhaul its security system, including tripling security investments. CEO Hwang stated, "We are working on establishing the committee to be installed internally, making key personnel appointments, organizing the structure, and formulating security diagnostics and investment plans. We have taken quick short-term measures where necessary, but more importantly, we need to take more time to review investments to strengthen security in the mid to long term." He added, "We will also announce progress externally."

Regarding this year's security investment amount, he said, "I think it will be close to the amount we publicly announced." Earlier, LG Uplus announced plans to increase its annual information security investment to 100 billion KRW. On the scale of damage support, he responded, "We are currently discussing the scale of damage support by forming a damage support consultative body, and the results need to come out."

Recently, the Fair Trade Commission raised issues with the three major telecom companies regarding violations of the Act on Labeling and Advertising. When 5G was introduced, the three companies advertised speeds 20 times faster than LTE. Regarding this, CEO Hwang said, "If there was any excessive expression, it was pointed out and corrected at the time. However, I think the situation back then is being viewed too strictly."

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