SK Telecom shares were strong in early trading on the 9th. Buying appeared to gather on analysis from the securities industry that SK Telecom will gradually recover results that worsened after last year's hacking incident.
As of 9:25 a.m. that day, SK Telecom was trading at 94,800 won on the Korea Exchange, up 5,800 won (6.52%) from the previous session.
That day, the securities industry said SK Telecom will gradually recover results that deteriorated after last year's hacking incident.
Kim Tae-hyun, an analyst at IBK Securities, said, "SK Telecom's annual results are expected to recover to pre-hacking levels."
Kim said, "From August to December last year, the company provided an additional 50 gigabytes (GB) of data each month, which led some users to downgrade their plans, but plans will normalize after the end of the provision period," adding, "In the third to fourth quarters this year, we expect a large improvement in profit driven by the effect of higher average revenue per user (ARPU)."
In April last year, SK Telecom experienced a breach in which customer information was leaked due to hacking of subscriber identity module (USIM) data.
Kim also noted that the value of its equity stake in U.S. generative artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic is coming to the fore, and said the company's value will be re-rated.
In 2023, SK Telecom executed a $100 million (about 147.98 billion won) equity investment in Anthropic and formed a strategic partnership.
Kim added, "Reflecting expectations for a recovery in results and a re-rating of company value driven by the highlighted value of the Anthropic equity stake, we raise our target price by 18.9% from the previous level to 107,000 won."