SK Telecom has been enhancing brand awareness with its service brand “T.”

By Kim Yoo-chul

SK Telecom, the nation’s top mobile carrier, is yielding sizable results over its steady investment in boosting its brand awareness.

The service brand ``T’’ represents its aim to become a telecom company to provide services via proven technology here.

``Since 2008, SK has been putting more resources on the process of brand renewal via the brand management system (BMS) and we hope the brand is positioned with greater familiarity,’’ said SK Telecom spokeswoman Kim Ji-won.

SK Telecom controls over 50 percent of Korea’s mobile phone sector and it is actively shifting its growth strategy outside the peninsula to move away from its dependence on the saturated local market.

``T-Store’’ ― www.tstore.co.kr ― is one noticeable product. The application market, which is the nation’s biggest, is seeing significant growth amid the continued popularity of smartphones in one of the world’s most-wired societies.

As of the end of May this year, over 8 million people have registered with the store and 90 percent of SK’s smartphone customers were downloading mobile content via the application gate, said Kim.

SK Telecom opened the market to non-SK Telecom subscribers in May last year as an apparent strategy to spread its ``T’’ brand, according to company officials.

``Smartphone owners that use Windows Mobile and Android mobile operating systems with non-SK Telecom contracts can use qualified mobile applications via the store,’’ said Kim.

More than one million apps have been traded via the store and the download numbers surpassed 200 million as of the end of May from 100 million as of last year.

Kim said the company will invest heavily to attract customers in Asia not just on its home-turf, and added the company will create ``profit-making’’ models for platform developers as a long-term strategy to lift the store to compete with existing mobile platform leaders.

As other campaigns for branding, SK has adopted a ``customer experience management” (CEM) system and it also runs a so-called ``T-Reporter’’ program for better communication with general users amid the era of ``smart devices.’’