SK Telecom today said the number of 5G subscribers exceeded 1.54 million at the end of September 2019.

SK Telecom’s mobile communications revenue grew by 0.1 percent year-on-year and 2.1 percent quarter-on-quarter to KRW 2.486 trillion — backed by 5G subscriber base. SK Telecom is the number one 5G operator in South Korea – ahead of KT. SK Telecom started 5G services in April 2019.

SK Telecom had 530,000 5G subscribers as of the end of June 2019. The company expects the number of its 5G subscribers to surpass 2 million this year.

SK Telecom’s revenue had increased 1.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to KRW 2.848 trillion in Q2 2019. Mobile service revenue achieved a turnaround after declining for seven consecutive quarters since Q4 2017.

SK Telecom posted revenue of KRW 4.561 trillion (+9.0 percent), operating income of KRW 302.1 billion (–0.7 percent), and net income of KRW 274.4 billion during the third quarter of 2019.

The telecom operator achieved a low churn rate of 1.0 percent and ranked No.1 in the mobile communications category of Korean Customer Satisfaction Index 2019 for 22 consecutive years.

SK Telecom’s 45 percent of revenue came from businesses other than mobile communication business. This shows that the media, security and commerce businesses have become solid drivers of the company’s growth and that SK Telecom is rapidly shifting itself from a mobile operator to New ICT company.

“SK Telecom will position itself as a new ICT company through all-round cooperation with ICT industry players including Kakao,” said Yoon Poong-young, chief financial officer of SK Telecom.