KT Sets Sales Target at 20 Tln Won for 2010

Employs the ’Convergence & SMART’ strategies

Suggesting the new growth strategies, dubbed “Convergence & SMART,” KT announced this year’s goal to post 20 trillion won in sales. The sales target is up from 18.96 trillion won in 2009 sales and the guidance figure for this year’s sales of 19.5 trillion won.
KT Chairman Lee Suck-chae said at a New Year’s meeting of reporters on Jan. 19, “Last year saw the paradigm shift to a wireless Internet market, a small yet great thing to happen, and we’ll do our utmost to repeat achievements by completing the change and innovation process.”
During 2009, KT made extensive headway in the financial and non-financial sectors by innovating its overall system, but he cautioned that this year is forecast not to be easy as it will likely see its fixed line business continue to decline and the competition for attracting customers will get more fierce.
Lee said the innovation business program that began in the form of introducing such smart phones as the wireless data iPhone will last into this year and KT will introduce a strategy called “S.M.ART,” an acronym for saving cost, maximizing profit art, in order to meet this year’s sales goal by improving the productivity of corporate clients and reducing costs.
Making the most of its strengths: the triple Ws ― WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a G-3 mobile telecommunications standard, WiFi and WiBro (wireless broadband Internet service) ― KT plans to increase the portion of smart phones to more than 20 percent of the total phones that will make their debut. Half of the new smart phones will embrace the Android operating system, the chairman said. WiBro networks will be built in 84 cities across the nation and an additional 14,000 QOOK&SHOW zones, formerly known as Nespot zones, will be installed in order to take the upper hand in the race for fortifying network coverage.
The fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network coverage for broadband Internet and fixed phone line services will be expanded to 99 percent. An additional 1,000 QOOK&SHOW stores (mobile outlets) and sales branch outlets will be established in order to retain the number of subscribers at 20 million.
Contents formatted for Internet protocol television (IPTV) and differentiated services will be provided by introducing open-ended business models on top of marketing activities targeting corporate and public clients in an effort to maintain a customer base of 2 million.
In a bid to achieve this year’s sales goal of posting 20 trillion won, he said, KT will invest 3.2 trillion won into building infrastructure for FTTH, WiBro and QOOK&SHOW zones. To this end, he said, “An explosive surge in data revenues and the corporate client sector will be explored.” KT will be able to share sales when it opens its network to allow content to be carried and seek more clients, as Apple does. A jump in sales from the corporate customer sector can be found as shown by supplying SHOW-OMNIA to Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corp. and Kolon. The higher sales goal will be reached as KT will likely see an increase in sales in the overseas business sector.
KT chalked up 18.96 trillion won in the guidance sales figure, 960 billion won in operating income and 610 billion won in net income. nw

KT Chairman & CEO Lee Suck-chae speaks at a meeting with reporters for his company’s 2010 plans.