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Richard Wacker, right, chairman of the KEB Foundation, ...

Steve Lim, right, CEO of JP Morgan Korea, poses with ...

Broadband, IPTV put SKB back on track

By Kim Tong-hyung Staff reporter The past few years have been tough for SK Broadband, formerly Hanaro Telecom, which has struggled to compete with industry giant KT in fixed-line telephony and broadband Internet services in a quickly-saturating domestic market. However, the company finally appears to be nearing the end of the tunnel, as it has acquired a growing number of customers for new ``convergence'' services like Internet telephony and Internet protocol television (IPTV). These products are becoming a crucial part of SK Broadband's discount packages that offer fixed-line, wireless, broadband and Web-enabled television under a single bill, allowing them to win over customers in markets where KT reigns. SK Broadband, the fixed-line unit of mobile telephony king, SK Teleocm, reported a loss of 44.3 billion won (about $39 million) during the first quarter on revenue of 493 billion won, which was a 12.5 percent increase year-on-year. But industry watchers believe the company will likely turn back to black during the second-half of the year. Such optimism is support

SK Telecom looks beyond mobile telephony

By Kim Tong-hyung Staff reporter SK Telecom, having secured undisputed status as the country's biggest mobile-phone carrier, is perhaps Korea's answer to Verizon Wireless. But judging by the company's new business strategies, one would assume that SK Telecom wants to be a Cisco too, as it looks beyond its traditional telecommunications boundaries in an attempt to keep growth alive for the next decade and further. Since taking the management helm at the start of 2009, SK Telecom CEO Jung Man-won has been pushing an initiative dubbed as ``Industry Productivity Enhancement (IPE),'' which is aimed at tapping into new opportunities across the industries of retail, automotives, construction, logistics, finance, education and healthcare. SK Telecom hopes that its technologies and experience in data services will allow it to provide value-added consumer products in different markets, while also offering cost-effective business solutions for corporate and government clients. SK Telecom hopes that its IPE businesses will generate 20 trillion won ($17.6 billion) in revenue by

iPhone-backed KT flexes mobile muscle

By Kim Tong-hyung Staff reporter The plot had remained the same for years ― KT, the huge but boring telecommunications giant, being repeatedly pummeled by its smaller and cooler rival, SK Telecom, in a competition that mirrored that of Tom and Jerry's. However, it now appears that KT is finally fighting back with pace and purpose, imposing a serious challenge on SK Telecom's supremacy in mobile telephony by wielding the planet's hottest electronic gadget. Since absorbing its mobile telephony unit, KTF, coming into 2009, KT, the country's largest telephone and broadband Internet provider, had focused on leveraging its fixed-line dominance to the wireless market. And progress has been quick since the company won the bid to bring in the Apple iPhone, perhaps the technology industry's most critical consumer product at the moment. KT officials had never doubted that the iPhone would be a game-changer here, but the impact of Apple's do-it-all smartphone has even exceeded the imagination of the optimists. Since its late November release, KT has sold more than 600,000 iPhone

Cutting the wires

This is the last in a 12-part series of “The Korea Times ― the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Joint Project” designed to identify new realities in the post-crisis world and provide winning strategies for leading Korean firms in 11 key industries. In cooperation with BCG, The Korea Times will look into a wide variety of issues both in the global economy and major indstries. ― ED. Desperate telecom firms look beyond traditional boundaries By Ethan Inhyuk Choi For the last two decades, the telecommunications industry has been at the heart of global economic growth. The spread of broadband internet, along with the explosive growth in demand for mobile telecommunication services, has made telecom operators the prime beneficiaries of the ``Information Age.'' Yet in the last five years, telecom players have grown anxious about an impending end to the good days as the market for telecom services nears a saturation point. The recent financial crisis has only added to their fears. The majority of telecom operators, especially those in developed markets such as Korea, have lately s

Korea ready to embrace multicultural society

By Eun Jae-ho It is evident that Korea is a dynamic society. The country has institutionalized the democratic system and achieved a higher level of industrialization in the five decades after liberation from Japanese colonial rule. The country has shown outstanding achievements, ranking fourth in the 2002 World Cup finals. As an OECD member country, it joined the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to shift its position from ``aided'' to ``aiding'' status in 2009. Korea ranked fifth in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and will host the G-20 Summit in November and the second Nuclear Security Summit in 2012. However, these achievements alone do not fully explain the dynamism of the country. Korean's enthusiasm for education is unprecedented in the world ― the illiteracy rate is nearly zero here. The proportion of people with a college education rose from 20 percent in the 1970s to 80 percent in 2010. However, there are dark sides to this astonishing advancement. Light and shadow are always back-to-back, and Korean society is no exception. One of them is a dramatic cha

Kim Hyung-jin, center, vice president of Shinhan Bank, ...

Lotte Group Vice Chairman Shin Dong-bin, left, talks with ...

Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Chairman ...