SK Telecom said its Q1 profit grew 15.2% to 346 billion won ($331.8 million), attributing the growth to strong performance at its SK Hynix memory chip manufacturing business.
Revenue grew 3.6% yea- on-year in a result SK Telecom attributed to its LTE gains, but declined 2% quarter-on-quarter, partly as a result of the suspension on adding new customers imposed by regulator KCC on all three operators earlier in the year.
Operating income meanwhile fell 17.8% year-on-year due to increased marketing and depreciation costs.
Mobile revenue grew 4% year-on-year to 2.72 trillion won. ARPU increased 3.4% to 40,450, and the company added 68,000 customers during the quarter, bringing its total to 26.97 million.
The company revealed late last month that it is close to reaching 10 million subscribers on its LTE network, which launched in July 2011, and yesterday repeated its projection of hitting 15 million LTE subscribers by the end of the year.
The company also reiterated its plan to launch commercial LTE-Advanced services by September.
SK Telecom has been diversifying beyond core network services, and said it expects to start seeing tangible results from its solutions, media and healthcare units in the next few quarters.