[Click eStock] "SK Telecom, AI Revenue to Begin from 2025"

Daishin Securities maintained a target price of 77,000 KRW and a 'Buy' investment rating for SK Telecom on the 13th, stating that AI-related revenue is expected to start generating from 2025.

SK Telecom recently announced a corporate value enhancement plan reflecting AI growth. It projected an operating profit of 2.1 trillion KRW in 2025, a 9% increase from the previous year. Achieving the 2 trillion KRW level would be the first time in 12 years. The company also declared it would achieve a return on equity (ROE) of over 10% in 2026. For shareholder returns, it promised to distribute more than 50% of the adjusted net income on a consolidated basis from 2024 to 2026, and set goals to reach 30 trillion KRW in sales and a 35% AI revenue ratio by 2030.

Researcher Kim Hoe-jae evaluated, "SK Telecom is actively establishing AI business models, and AI revenue is expected to gradually emerge starting in 2025," adding, "They have been actively engaging in partnerships and investments around the announcement of the AI pyramid strategy in September last year."

He stated, "They invested 100 million USD in Anthropic, which is valued at over 25 trillion KRW in 2023, and invested a total of 320 billion KRW this year in enhancing the hyper-personalized AI assistant (PAA) solution A.Dot, as well as in Lambda, Perplexity, SGH, and others."

He further noted, "Data centers (DC), including AI DCs, are expected to reach 100MW in 2024 and 300MW by 2030," adding, "From December this year, Lambda and AI DC GPUaaS services will commence."

He also mentioned, "Through the A.Dot-Perplexity promotion, SK Telecom customers will be offered the Perplexity Pro service, which costs 20 USD per month, free of charge for one year, and from the end of 2025, it will switch to a paid model with an R/S model introduced."