KT posted solid third-quarter results on the back of sales growth centered on group affiliates such as cloud, data centers (DC), and real estate, as well as the reflection of real estate presale gains.
KT said on the 11th that under Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS) on a consolidation basis, it posted third-quarter revenue of 7.1267 trillion won and operating profit of 538.2 billion won. Revenue rose 7.1% from a year earlier, and operating profit increased 16%. Net profit was 445.3 billion won, up 16.2% year over year.
KT said, "This performance reflects not only balanced growth in the wireless and wireline businesses, but also a one-off real estate presale gain from the development of the Gangbuk headquarters site," adding, "Strong performance in group real estate businesses led by KT Estate and the expansion of cloud and DC businesses also drove improvement."
◇ B2C and B2B grow together; AX new business launches in earnest
Wireless service revenue increased 4.7% from a year earlier. 5G (fifth-generation mobile communications) subscribers accounted for 80.7% of all handset subscribers. Wireline revenue also rose 1.5% year over year, with internet revenue up 2.3% and media business revenue up 3.1%. Corporate services revenue increased 0.7% due to growth in corporate messaging and corporate internet revenue.
Starting in the third quarter, KT put its "AI multimodel strategy (AX business)" lineup into full operation. After launching the independently developed Korean large language model (LLM) "믿:음 K 2.0" in July, it introduced "SOTA K (State of the Art)," built in collaboration with Microsoft (MS), and "Llama K," based on Meta's open source, in September. KT also opened the "KT Innovation Hub" with MS as a base for industry-specific AX consulting. KT plans to use this space to help corporate customers directly experience and receive consulting on industry-specific AI and DX solutions.
◇ Continued growth of group affiliates including cloud, DC, and real estate
Subsidiary KT Cloud expanded orders for artificial intelligence (AI) cloud services, centered on the public institutional sector. With the completion of the Gasan AI data center (DC) increasing data center capacity, both DC and cloud revenue grew steadily. KT Estate saw higher revenue than a year earlier as office and hotel leasing expanded, with strong performance driven in particular by a recovery in lodging demand and the opening of new hotels.
By contrast, the content subsidiary saw a slight decline in revenue due to fewer original productions. Internet-only bank Kbank had 14.97 million customers as of the end of September, up 3 million from a year earlier.
◇ Launch of small-payment damage compensation and start of CEO appointment process
In connection with recent unauthorized small-payment damage and a personal information leak, KT has been offering free USIM (USIM, subscriber identity module) replacements for all customers since Nov. 5. It blocked abnormal payment types and introduced an FDS (Fraud Detection System) to strengthen real-time detection and blocking. It deployed "safety and security specialist counselors" at more than 2,000 stores nationwide.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jang Min said, "We will make restoring customer trust our top priority and provide stable service by strengthening information protection systems and network management," adding, "We will focus on enhancing corporate value through the tandem growth of 'AI transformation (AX)' and our core telecommunications business."
Separately, KT recently had its director candidate recommendation committee begin the process of appointing the next CEO. The committee consists entirely of outside directors (eight members) and plans to finalize the shortlist within the year.