Based in South Korea, SK Telecom operates under the SK Group which is one of the largest industrial conglomerates of the nation. The company is famous for being the largest wireless carrier of South Korea and had a local market share of 50.5 percent as of 2008. SK Telecom was established in 1984 as Korea Mobile Telecommunications and in 1997 it was rebranded as SK Telecom. The company has evolved with time from using the analog cellular system to IMT-cellular systems. From the wireless market, SK has also entered the landline market with the acquisition of Hanaro Telecom in 2008. Currently, the company has more than 40,000 employees and has expanded overseas especially to other Asian countries.
History of the SK Telecom
Established in early 1984, Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corp was a subsidiary of Korea Telecom (now known as KT Corp). In 1993, KT Corp decided to sell the subsidiary and thus it came under the SK Group a year later when it decided to buy Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corp. The company, KMTC, officially became a part of the SK Group in 1997 and changed its name to SK Telecom. Under the new parent company, SK Telecom became the second company in the world to launch commercial 3G services using the W-CDMA technology. Eventually, SK Telecom’s services offered higher speed data transmission than the other existing 2G networks.
When the privatization of KMTC took place in 1994, SK Group became the largest shareholder of the company. And, after the privatization, KTMC reached it’s one million subscribers mark within a year. In 1996, it was listed in the NYSE and during that time it was the third Korean company to get listed there. After KMTC became fully a part of the SK Group and changed its name, the merger made it the world’s sixth company to cross the ten million subscriber mark. In 1997, SK Telecom launched NetsGo, a new online service. The company started entering the international market during this time through the construction of the Northeast Asian CDMA belt. The company also entered the Mongolian market in 1998 when it cofounded Skytel LLC with 30 percent ownership.
Market in the 21st Century
During the time period between 2001 to 2007, SK Telecom was involved in welcoming the cross-platform era integrated mobile services. The company started exploring new models to diversify the business through m-commerce or satellite DMB service. SK acquired Shinsegi Telecomm Inc in 2002 and deployed the IMT-2000 facility which was the world’s first. The company was also trying to strike deals with the international market leveraging CDMA and GSM networks. This helped the company enter into several markets including Israel, China, and Vietnam. In 2004, SK Telecom started a joint venture with China Unicom and named it UNISK and a few years later signed an agreement with the Chinese government for building their 3G wireless broadband equivalent.
New Technologies
With time the company evolved and adapted new technologies to survive and thrive in the telecommunications market. In 2008, the company acquired a controlling stake of Hanaro Telecom and it helped SK to expand in the landline market. SK started offering commercial LTE-Advanced Network and it became the world’s first operator to successfully do so. Apple also made some discussions with SK Telecom back in 2013 as the former decided to launch the iPhone 5s model on the company’s advanced LTE network. In 2019, the company also announced the launch of the world’s first 5G roaming service in partnership with Swisscom. Recently, the company has also partnered with Uber Technologies. Company not only introduced some advanced networking technologies for the first time in South Korea but also in the entire world.
Jung Ho Park – CEO of SK Telecom
Jung Ho Park is the current CEO of SK Telecom. He is currently looking out for long-time growth opportunities and building a strong corporate culture in the company. Previously, he served as the CEO of SK Hynix and after that served as the director of SK C&C Co. Jung Ho Park completed his education from George Washington University.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more