[Concall] SKT "Perplexity Pro, Available for Subscription Under the Most Favorable Conditions in Korea"

Conference Call on SK Telecom's Q3 Earnings on the 6th
"Establishing an Unprecedented Partnership with Perplexity"

SK Telecom is considering a plan to allow Korean users who want to use the paid artificial intelligence (AI) search service 'Perplexity Pro' to subscribe under more favorable conditions than the global terms.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 6th, Lee Jae-shin, head of SKT's AI Growth Strategy, stated during the Q3 earnings conference call, "We are cooperating (with the other company) so that anyone, including SKT and Korean users, can subscribe to Perplexity Pro under conditions more favorable than the global terms if they wish."

He added, "Through the telecom operator's marketing channels, SKT secured the largest number of subscribers in the shortest time compared to other telecom operators conducting promotions together in countries like Germany and Japan," and "This achievement has led to an unprecedented partnership in both marketing and technology aspects."

Earlier, SKT invested 10 million dollars in Perplexity in Q2 this year, and since September, it has been offering the paid service Perplexity Pro free of charge to SKT users.

He also mentioned that the two companies are jointly developing an AI model. Lee said, "We are collaborating to develop a model that provides the most accurate answers by reflecting Korea's cultural uniqueness and circumstances," adding, "We have strengths across the entire value chain based on multimodal data, proprietary foundation models such as small language models (sLM), and infrastructure like GPUs."

SKT also announced plans to achieve sales of 30 trillion won by 2030, with 35% of that coming from the AI business. SKT plans to expand its AI business through AI Data Centers (AIDC), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sectors.

Kim Yang-seop, SKT's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), said, "The AI sales target we set is a challenging task, but we hope it is seen as a vision to grow AI to the scale of the telecommunications business and leap forward as a global AI company."

He added, "We are internally considering financial performance systems that separate telecommunications and AI," and "We will communicate with the market at an appropriate time."

He also noted that the number of 5G subscribers increased in the second half of the year as flagship smartphones were consecutively released by Samsung Electronics, Apple, and others. Kim Ji-hyung, head of Integrated Marketing Strategy, said, "In Q3, the popularity of 5G plans remained strong due to the release of flagship devices such as the Galaxy foldable phone and the new iPhone in September, along with plans that include Netflix."

As of the end of September, SKT recorded 16.58 million 5G subscribers in its mobile business, with the proportion of 5G plan users increasing by 73%.