Consumer Prices Fall to 1% Range After Three Months... Mobile Fee Reduction Brings Year’s Lowest Increase (Update)

Consumer Price Growth Falls Back to 1% in August
Mobile Phone Fee Cuts Lead to Lowest Inflation in Nine Months
Agricultural and Processed Food Prices Continue to Rise
Fresh Food Index Turns Positive After Months of Decline

Since the USIM hacking incident that occurred last April, SK Telecom's new subscriber sales, which had been completely suspended, fully resumed on the 24th. It has been 51 days since the USIM hacking incident, during which 190,000 subscribers left for KT and 150,000 for LG Uplus over the past month. The photo shows an SK Telecom agency in downtown Seoul. 2025.06.24 Photo by Dongju Yoon

In August, the consumer price index fell back to the 1% range for the first time in three months. Due to a temporary reduction in mobile phone charges, the rate of increase was the lowest in nine months.

According to "Consumer Price Trends for August 2025" released by Statistics Korea on September 2, last month's consumer price index rose 1.7% year-on-year. After remaining in the 2% range since January this year, consumer prices dropped to 1.9% in May, then stayed in the 2% range for two consecutive months in June (2.2%) and July (2.1%).

The main reason for the consumer price growth rate dropping to the 1% range was a 21.0% decrease in mobile phone charges compared to a year ago. Mobile phone charges were reduced by 50% as SK Telecom offered discounts following a large-scale hacking incident that led to subscriber losses. As a result, mobile phone charges lowered the overall inflation rate by 0.42 percentage points.

Prices of agricultural, livestock, and fisheries products rose 4.8% from a year earlier. This is the largest increase in 13 months since July last year (5.5%). Processed food prices increased 4.2% year-on-year, maintaining a growth rate in the 4% range for the second consecutive month after a 4.1% rise in the previous month.

The fresh food index rose 2.1%. After remaining negative from February (-1.4%) through July (-0.5%), the index turned positive. Fresh fish and shellfish prices surged 8.0% year-on-year. Fresh vegetable prices increased by 0.9%, and fresh fruit prices rose by 0.1%. Compared to the previous month, fresh vegetable prices jumped by 19.3%.

The index excluding food and energy rose 1.3% year-on-year. The index excluding agricultural products and petroleum increased 1.9% over the same period. The living necessities price index rose 1.5% year-on-year. Petroleum products fell 1.2% compared to the same month last year.

Electricity, gas, and water charges increased by 0.3% year-on-year. Overall service prices rose by 1.3% compared to a year ago. Personal services increased by 3.1%, while public services dropped by 3.6%.

The core inflation index, which excludes food and energy and is based on the OECD method, rose 1.3%. This is a significant decrease compared to the previous month (2.0%).

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