S K Telecom looks to Asia for global expansion
June 27th, 2006 - Posted in CDMALeveraging the cultural and geographical proximity, S K Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, is looking at other Asian countries as part of its global expansion plans.
“In 2006, we will continue to seek global business opportunities in an active but deliberate manner, focussing on other Asian countries which are close to us culturally as well as geographically,” Kyu Kwan Lim, vice-president (enterprise solution business) said here at the three-day Solutions and Content Exhibition of Korea (SEK 2006).
Lim, however, did not talk of any specific country where the Korean firm has set its sights on. He was silent on any proposed plans of the company to enter Indian mobile market, one of the fastest growing in the world, either through acquisitions, joint ventures or just technical tie-ups.
In April, the world’s largest mobile company Vodafone picked up a 10 per cent stake in India’s GSM firm Bharti Airtel for a little over 1.5 billion dollar. Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) acquired 49 per cent stake in regional GSM player Spice Communications for 179 million dollar.
“Be it India or Europe, we are open and active about globalisation” he said.
S K Telecom was reportedly in talks with Tata Teleservices earlier this year for a stake in the company.
However, the proposal did not materialise due to valuation disagreements. Last week, it agreed to buy 1 billion dollar worth of convertible bonds issued by China Unicom, the listed arm of China’s second most popular cell phone provider, as part of a strategic alliance.
South Korea’s biggest wireless carrier by revenue will now work with China Unicom on their CDMA mobile phone businesses. The Seoul-based operator is gung ho about two of its current overseas ventures — US and Vietnam.
“We will continue to make strong progress in applying our core capabilities to overseas markets. In the US, we will launch Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) service in the first half of 2006 under the brand name ‘Helio’ which is expected to create an explosive demand for wireless data services. This major effort in US is expected to give us a solid experience for our future global expansion,” Lim said.
SK Telecom is also offering CDMA mobile services in Vietnam which it treats as a market with high growth potential. “Our US and Vietnam businesses will be key indicators of our capabilties to advance as a global telecom firm,” he said.
According to the industry observers in Korea, the mobile phone service market in Korea has matured. To expand, telecom companies have to focus on growth and business opportunities beyond shores.
S K Telecom has upgraded its WCDMA services to High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which will greatly improve the data transmission speed. HSDPA as a value-added services will offer video calls, digital multimedia broadcasting of on-demand TV channels, mobile news, mobile banking and stock trading, as well as mobile blogging, interactive gaming.
HSDPA complements the WCDMA standard, which in turn, is allied with GSM and GPRS network. The company has over 20 million subscribers with 52 per cent marketshare in the domestic market.
Via: ASIA PULSE