ID :
199278
Fri, 08/05/2011 - 10:22
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/199278
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KT reports marginal rise in Q2 net profit on stake sales
(ATTN: UPDATES share price in para 5)
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's telecom titan KT Corp. said Friday that its second-quarter earnings marginally rose from one year ago mainly due to the sale of its entire stake in its Russian unit.
Net profit reached 420.6 billion won (US$396.2 million) in the April-June period, compared with a revised 419.5 billion won a year earlier, the country's second-largest mobile carrier said in a regulatory filing.
Sales rose 7.9 percent on-year to 5.34 trillion won but operating profit slumped 35.9 percent to 432.4 billion won in the same period due to the increased wireless network investment, it said.
The figure fell short of the market consensus of 523.2 billion won, according to analysts polled by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency.
Shares of KT closed at 38,800 won on the Seoul bourse, down 3.48 percent from Thursday's close, compared with the benchmark index's 3.7 percent dip.
In May, KT sold its entire stake in its Russian unit, New Telephone Company (NTC), for $346 million to a Russian telecom company.
The company said its second-quarter profit took a beating from increased costs in network investments and smartphone purchases.
KT, which introduced the iPhone in the country at the end of 2009, logged a 49.3 billion won increase in depreciation costs during the three months after the operator beefed up network investment to meet exploding demand for wireless data. It also spent additional 324 billion won to purchase high-end smartphones as more consumers seek feature-rich mobile computing devices.
Even though the company added 850,000 subscribers in the April-June period from one year ago and secured more smartphone users, average revenue per user declined because of tariff discounts, it said.
Heavier costs and reduced profit from subscribers outweighed increased profit from wireless data sales and fixed-line Internet revenues, the company said.
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's telecom titan KT Corp. said Friday that its second-quarter earnings marginally rose from one year ago mainly due to the sale of its entire stake in its Russian unit.
Net profit reached 420.6 billion won (US$396.2 million) in the April-June period, compared with a revised 419.5 billion won a year earlier, the country's second-largest mobile carrier said in a regulatory filing.
Sales rose 7.9 percent on-year to 5.34 trillion won but operating profit slumped 35.9 percent to 432.4 billion won in the same period due to the increased wireless network investment, it said.
The figure fell short of the market consensus of 523.2 billion won, according to analysts polled by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency.
Shares of KT closed at 38,800 won on the Seoul bourse, down 3.48 percent from Thursday's close, compared with the benchmark index's 3.7 percent dip.
In May, KT sold its entire stake in its Russian unit, New Telephone Company (NTC), for $346 million to a Russian telecom company.
The company said its second-quarter profit took a beating from increased costs in network investments and smartphone purchases.
KT, which introduced the iPhone in the country at the end of 2009, logged a 49.3 billion won increase in depreciation costs during the three months after the operator beefed up network investment to meet exploding demand for wireless data. It also spent additional 324 billion won to purchase high-end smartphones as more consumers seek feature-rich mobile computing devices.
Even though the company added 850,000 subscribers in the April-June period from one year ago and secured more smartphone users, average revenue per user declined because of tariff discounts, it said.
Heavier costs and reduced profit from subscribers outweighed increased profit from wireless data sales and fixed-line Internet revenues, the company said.
