SKT Aims to Fully Restore Annual Performance to Pre-Hacking Levels... Targeting Dividend Payouts Comparable to Previous Years (Comprehensive)

Company-wide Adoption of AI Tools and Productivity Enhancement Through Call Center AX

SK Telecom announced its commitment to fully restore its annual performance to pre-hacking levels and beyond, through recovering profitability in its telecommunications business and expanding growth businesses centered around artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

Jongseok Park, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of SK Telecom, stated during the first quarter earnings conference call on May 7, "The consolidated operating profit for the first quarter was 537.6 billion won, nearly returning to the level before the incident after a period of decline," and added, "We are aiming to further improve the annual results beyond the current level."

Park explained, "In telecommunications, we are recovering both revenue and profitability thanks to our top-priority efforts this year to regain customer trust," and continued, "For the AI business, we are seeking ways to structurally enhance profitability by focusing on select areas and phasing out low-margin operations."

He further expressed optimism, saying, "The data center business, which is showing meaningful growth, and the B2B (business-to-business) business, which has been restructured around the AI full stack, are expected to drive revenue and contribute to profitability for the remainder of the year."

Park emphasized, "Company-wide implementation of AI tools and the transformation of call centers with AI (AX) are leading to improved productivity across all business operations and work processes, which in turn has had a positive effect on cost efficiency."

A panoramic view of SK Telecom SKT Tower.

SK Telecom aims to restore its performance this year and resume dividend payouts at levels comparable to previous years.

Park stated, "We reinstated the first quarter dividend at 830 won, in line with previous years," and added, "We plan to ensure stable dividend payments this year as we recover performance."

He explained, "We will do our utmost to maintain dividend payouts at the usual level. The annual dividend amount will be discussed and decided by the board of directors once our business results are finalized, taking into account management performance and our financial structure."

Park also noted, "At the shareholders' meeting in March, we converted 1.7 trillion won of capital reserves to retained earnings in order to enable tax-exempt dividends," and added, "Tax-exempt dividends will be possible from the year-end, in accordance with relevant laws."

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