South Korea's LG U+ has reported a solid 11% increase in net profit for 2017 to 547.1 billion won ($501.6 million), on the back of a 7.2% increase in revenue to 12.27 trillion won.
Service revenue for the year was up 4.2% to 9.40 trillion won, with handset revenue growing 18.6% to 2.87 trillion won.
Total wireless revenue increased 2.5% to 5.57 trillion won, with service revenue up 3.6% to 5.17 trillion won. But interconnection revenue fell 7.2% for the year to 390.1 billion won.
LG U+ ended the year with 13.18 million wireless subscribers, up 5.5% from a year earlier. Net additions for the year increased 27.9% to 692,000. The operator's LTE penetration rate increased to 92.1%, but churn increased slightly to 1.9%.
Triple play service revenue meanwhile increased 11.7% to 1.77 billion won, with broadband revenue growing 9.6% to 792.6 billion won and IPTV revenue up 21.8% to 745.6 billion won. But VoIP revenue declined 7.2% over the same period to 231.3 billion won.
Operating expenses increased 7% year-on-year to 11.45 billion won, mainly due to higher costs of sales, handset expenses and amortization expenses. But capex decreased 9.4% for the year to 1.14 billion won, due in large part to a 29.5% decrease in wireless network capex.
For the fourth quarter, LG U+ reported a 6.6% year-on-year increase in revenue to 3.33 trillion won, with net income growing 15% year on year but declining 5% sequentially to 135.6 billion won.