Yoo Young-sang SKT CEO "AI to Achieve 40 Trillion Won Corporate Value by 2026"

Celebrating 1 Year in Office, Unveils 3 Major Strategies... Brand Renewal
Declares Leap to 'AI Company',

Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom. Photo by SKT

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom, announced three major strategies to transform the company into an AI company on the occasion of his first anniversary in office. Based on this, the plan is to increase the corporate value to over 40 trillion won by 2026.

On the 7th, CEO Yoo held a town hall meeting for all employees and unveiled the SKT 2.0 vision of “an AI company that benefits customers through technology and services.”

CEO Yoo emphasized, “Over the past year, thanks to the efforts of all employees, the vision of SKT 2.0 has become clearer and more defined. We will leap forward as a differentiated ‘AI company’ unique to SKT by adding artificial intelligence (AI) to the core connectivity technology based on our main business, telecommunications.”

He also stated, “Since enhancing the capabilities of our employees is key to achieving the SKT 2.0 vision, we will maintain the existing self-directed work culture while communicating and collaborating more efficiently.”

SKT 2.0 Vision

Adding Three Major Strategies to Five Business Units to Leap into an ‘AI Company’

To achieve the AI company vision in SKT’s unique way, SKT announced three major strategies for its current five business units: redefining the Core Business as AI, innovating customer relationships through AI services, and innovating through AIX.

Last year, SKT reorganized its entire business into five divisions?wired and wireless telecommunications, media, enterprise, AIVERSE, and connected intelligence?based on three key themes: customer, technology, and service.

Redefining the core business as AI means transforming existing core businesses such as wired and wireless telecommunications, media, and enterprise into AI-driven operations to secure new growth engines.

SKT plans to improve the entire wired and wireless telecommunications process so that customers can seamlessly explore, subscribe to, and use services and products online, and will introduce ‘AI MNO,’ which applies AI throughout the entire customer service usage process.

In the media sector, SKT will focus on strengthening content capabilities. It will integrate media assets scattered across IPTV, channels, and T-commerce, and combine AI technology to launch an ‘AI Media Player’ that provides customers with perfectly tailored customized content.

In the enterprise sector, SKT plans to redefine the business as ‘AI Enterprise,’ supporting customers’ AI transformation centered on six core businesses: data centers, dedicated lines, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, big data, and AI.

The strategy to innovate customer relationships through AI services involves applying new technologies and content to AI-based services such as A., ifland, and T Woosoo, making the relationship between AI services and customers closer.

A. plans to continuously secure core competencies by discovering killer services to drive customer usage, adjusting the content priority of currently provided services, and investing in companies with core AI technologies, characters, and content-related capabilities.

ifland aims to become a global top-tier metaverse service through global expansion and joint content development with various companies. It plans to continuously expand social functions and introduce a crypto-based economic system linking ifland’s virtual currency with the real economy.

T Woosoo will evolve into an AI-based commerce subscription platform by building a subscription-only platform that guides customers to optimal subscription products through AI and provides growth opportunities based on subscription models to partner companies.

AIX involves finding companies that need AI or digital transformation (DT) for investment or acquisition and spreading SKT’s AI and DT capabilities.

SKT expects to discover various AIX cases, such as increasing productivity through robots or vision AI in manufacturing and upgrading services using AI technologies like X-Caliber in healthcare.

Based on these three strategies, SKT announced its goal to increase its corporate value to over 40 trillion won by 2026 and establish itself as Korea’s representative AI company.

Simultaneous Renewal of SKT and SKB Brands... Opening a New World

On the same day, CEO Yoo unveiled the renewed brands for T (SKT) and B (SK Broadband), symbolizing the leap to an ‘AI company.’

The renewed brand design is inspired by ‘OPEN,’ symbolizing a door open to the future. It conveys the meaning of opening a new world, new business, and new lifestyle beyond familiar stereotypes and limitations.

The representative brand color, ‘T Blue,’ signifies futurism and technology. To provide customers with a consistent experience, SKT applied the same color system to the brand renewals of both T and B, emphasizing synergy between the two brands.

SKT plans to introduce the renewed T and B brands across all customer touchpoints, starting with major sites soon, and will expand the new brand identity to all sub-brands in the future.

T-B Renewal Brand. Photo by SKT

Upgrading SKT 2.0 Corporate Culture to Be More Flexible

CEO Yoo believes that securing and nurturing talent is the key element to achieving the SKT 2.0 vision. The plan is to upgrade the corporate culture that has been continuously improved.

Over the past year, SKT has worked hard to build a ‘flexible corporate culture’ by introducing the hub office ‘Sphere’ to foster a self-directed work culture, operating ‘The Lounge’ to activate communication among employees, and expanding ‘Happy Friday’ (Friday off).

CEO Yoo stated that going forward, to strengthen employees’ capabilities, he will actively listen to employees’ voices through enhanced on-site management via town halls and visits to regional headquarters, as well as active communication between leaders and employees.

He especially emphasized that Corporate Culture 2.0 will not be limited to SKT but will be shared and spread across the entire ICT family companies, including SKB, tailored to the characteristics of each business.

One Year Since SKT 2.0 Launch: “Unwavering Progress Toward Becoming an AI Company”

Before introducing these innovation plans, SKT reviewed the achievements and challenges of major projects to concretize the vision. In 2022, through active cooperation with SKB, SKT created ‘T-B synergy,’ and is expected to achieve a record-high consolidated revenue exceeding 17 trillion won, marking a solid start toward becoming an AI company.

In wired and wireless telecommunications, SKT is on the verge of surpassing 13 million 5G subscribers and achieved the highest net increase in wired broadcasting subscribers (from 36% in 2021 to 47% in 2022). In the media sector, SKT expects double-digit growth in media-related revenue compared to the previous year, driven by continuous growth in transaction volume (GMV) of SK Stoa and T Deal, and improved viewership rankings through strengthened original content on Channel S, which launched last year. In the AI semiconductor field, SKT secured global top-level product competitiveness by simultaneously establishing Sapion’s U.S. and Korean subsidiaries and acquiring talent.

SKT also achieved results in ultra-collaboration beyond domestic and international borders. To strengthen AIVERSE’s service competitiveness and global expansion, SKT is partnering and collaborating with global big tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta, as well as key continental telecom operators including Deutsche Telekom, Singtel, T-Mobile, and NTT Docomo.

Domestically, SKT strengthened cooperation with startups and cross-industry partners by acquiring shares and forming a strategic partnership with Korean AI solution company Konan Technology last month, and establishing a strategic alliance including share exchange with Hana Financial Group in July in the finance and ICT sectors.

CEO Yoo Young-sang said, “Although SKT has achieved steady growth over the past year, we stand at a time of great upheaval due to changes in the macroeconomic environment caused by rapid shifts in international affairs. We will walk the path unwaveringly to realize the vision of becoming an ‘AI company’ while thoroughly preparing plans to respond to all threats and crises.”