SK Telecom posted the biggest net gain in subscribers among the three mobile carriers in the mobile number portability market from January to July this year.
According to the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association (KTOA) on the 3rd, SK Telecom saw a net increase of 156,842 subscribers through number portability from January to July this year. During the same period, LG Uplus recorded a net gain of 57,930, while KT had a net loss of 232,901.
Number portability is a figure that counts subscribers who moved to another operator without keeping their existing carrier.
The industry says SK Telecom and LG Uplus absorbed a significant share of the demand in the number portability market as KT suffered subscriber defections after a personal data leak. In particular, SK Telecom's result is analyzed as being boosted by a base effect following last year's USIM information leak that triggered large-scale subscriber churn.
Competition in the number portability market is expected to intensify in the second half of this year. With the launch of Samsung's new Galaxy foldable and Apple's new iPhone also scheduled, the three carriers are likely to ramp up a full-fledged race to secure subscribers around device replacement demand. Typically, the scale of number portability tends to expand when new devices are released. In particular, for KT, the key will be how many subscribers it can win back after leaving due to the personal data leak.