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SEOUL, Aug. 7 (Yonhap) — KT Corp., South Korea’s No. 2 wireless carrier, announced Monday that its second-quarter net income rose 19 percent year-over-year due to strong sales in its business-to-business operations.
The company reported a consolidated net profit of 432.5 billion won (US$331.8 million) in the three months ending June 30, up from 363.4 billion won the previous year, according to a regulatory filing.
Its operating profit for the April-June period increased 25.5 percent to 576.1 billion won and sales grew 3.7 percent to 6.54 trillion won, the largest quarterly amount in any second quarter since 2010.
The earnings exceeded market expectations. The average estimate of net profit by analysts was 399.4 billion won, according to a survey by Yonhap Infomax.
KT said the higher-than-expected performance in the second quarter was largely driven by its business-to-business sectors. Sales of its platform service for businesses increased 0.6 percent year-over-year to 509.6 billion won, and those of its business communications service rose 7.6 percent to 546.9 billion won from a year earlier.
The company also saw sales of its business-to-customer platform business increase 3.8 percent year-over-year to 575.6 billion won, and its wireless business for customers posted 2.4 trillion won in sales, up 0.8 percent from a year ago.
The number of 5G subscribers reached 9.28 million, accounting for 68 percent of all of KT’s mobile users, the company said.
brk@yna.co.kr
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