SK Telecom's Q3 profit rebounds higher than before 2025 hacking incident

SK Telecom's third-quarter operating profit surged more than 11-fold from a year earlier, exceeding prehack levels, as South Korea's largest mobile carrier has seemingly recovered from the financial fallout of its massive 2025 data breach.

The company said Wednesday that operating profit jumped 1,040.3 percent on-year to 552.3 billion won ($412.7 million) in the July-September period, up from 48.4 billion won a year earlier.

The figure surpassed the 533.3 billion won recorded in the third quarter of 2024, before the cyberattack, and marked the third consecutive quarter of operating profit exceeding 500 billion won.

Revenue rose 13.1 percent to 4.5 trillion won, while the company swung to a net profit of 411.8 billion won from a loss of 166.7 billion won a year earlier.

The dramatic earnings rebound largely reflected a low comparison base. SK Telecom's profit plunged in the third quarter of 2025 as it absorbed customer compensation costs following the massive data breach in April that year.

The company's core wireless business continued to recover, supported by a marketing strategy focused on retaining customers and increasing their long-term value. Fixed-line revenue grew 7.4 percent on-year, driven by an increase in broadband subscribers.

With its telecom business stabilizing, SK Telecom is accelerating its expansion into artificial intelligence infrastructure, particularly data centers.

The company has established two subsidiaries to spearhead the push. SK Hyper, launched in July, focuses on AI data center business development, while SK Horizon, established in August, handles infrastructure construction and operations. SK Telecom oversees overall strategy, risk management and global partnerships.

SK Horizon is developing AI data centers in Ulsan and Seoul with a combined planned capacity of about 180 megawatts.

SK Hyper is negotiating commercial terms with potential customers, primarily for the Ulsan project. Development on secured sites will move forward once customer agreements are finalized.

SK Telecom is also expanding applications of its proprietary AI foundation model across its AI assistant — known as A. — and workplace AI services. The company plans to further integrate its telecom and AI capabilities through its participation in the government's "AI for All" initiative.

Capital expenditure by SK Telecom and its broadband subsidiary SK Broadband reached 461.4 billion won in the third quarter, up 0.9 percent on-year but down 5.3 percent from the previous quarter.

Separately, SK Hyper invested 148.6 billion won in AI data center development during the period.

"We have been able to achieve both recovery and growth through our two business pillars, telecom and AI," said Chief Financial Officer Park Jong-seok.

"We will continue working to bring the two businesses together under a single growth strategy to create greater synergies."