SK Telecom Co, South Korea's top mobile operator, posted a 56 percent jump in quarterly profit on Monday, helped by reduced marketing costs and sales of lucrative wireless data services. SK, which controls half of the country's $17 billion mobile market, also announced its top shareholder SK Corp has finalised plans to sell $1.05 billion of SK Telecom shares by early next month to repay maturing debt.
Analysts say future growth momentum is likely to depend on further cost cutting as returns from investment in key new services, such as data and content, will take time.
SK earned 467 billion won ($451 million) in net profit for the quarter to June 30, slightly short of analysts' forecast of 477 billion, hit by losses from investment in its handset manufacturing and mobile television operations.
It compared with a profit of 299 billion won a year earlier and 368 billion in the previous quarter.
Sales were 2.53 trillion won, versus 2.38 trillion a year ago and 2.41 trillion in the first quarter.
For the full year, net profit is expected to rise 13 percent to 1.7 trillion won, Reuters Estimates data showed. That forecast indicates second-half profit will rise 16 percent to 864 billion won from a year ago.