SKT pins 2026 hopes on AI after annus horribilis

• Following its major data breach, SK Telecom’s core mobile business suffered
• As a result, it has reported lower sales and profits for the full year 2025
• But its AI strategy offers hope for a recovery this year

If you didn’t know already that SK Telecom (SKT) had suffered a challenging past 12 months, you’d likely be able to guess as much from the South Korean telecom and AI services company’s 2025 full year financial results, which include notable declines in revenues and earnings.

The silver lining? SKT’s AI business has been performing well and even its 5G subscriber base has been growing in recent months. Those factors give the self-styled ‘AI company’ hope for a better 2026.

SK Telecom reported a well-documented calamitous data breach in April 2025 that resulted in a loss of 800,000 mobile customers, crippling costs, lower sales and ultimately a change of CEO – see SKT suffers cyberbreach fallout, appoints new CEO.   

As a result, its financial performance was negatively impacted starting in the second quarter of last year, which has been reflected in its full year results.  

(Note: SK Telecom reports consolidated results, which bundle in the numbers from fixed network service provider SK Broadband along with SK Telecom’s mobile and AI services numbers, and non-consolidated results, which are just those for SK Telecom’s mobile and AI operations. The numbers reported below are the non-consolidated results.)

SKT reported full year revenues of 12,051bn South Korean won (KRW) ($8.2bn), down by 5.7% compared with 2024’s numbers. Operating income crashed by 46.7% to KRW812bn ($550m) and net income slumped by 67.9% to KRW411bn ($280m).

But the worst may be over. SKT has been growing its 5G subscriber base since the initial exodus of mobile customers in early summer 2025 and it ended 2025 with 17.49 million 5G customers and almost 21.9 million mobile customers in total.  

At the same time, SKT saw the number of users for its A dot (A.) personal AI assistant grow from 8.3 million at the end of 2024 to 11.2 million at the end of last year. 

Meanwhile, SKT’s AI operations boasted strong growth. Its AI datacentre (AIDC) revenues (including GPUaaS) grew by 34.9% in 2025 to reach KRW519.9bn ($350m) while its AIX (AI transformation) unit, which includes its enterprise-focused AI, cloud and associated systems integration services, reported a 6.4% increase to KRW198.6m ($130m). 

“This performance was driven by higher utilisation rates at the Gasan (Seoul) and Yangju (Gyeonggi) datacentres and the acquisition of the Pangyo datacentre,” noted SKT. “The Ulsan AIDC, a joint project with Amazon Web Services (AWS), has progressed smoothly since its groundbreaking in September 2025. In 2026, SK Telecom plans to break ground on an additional datacentre in Seoul. The company also plans to strengthen its AIDC solution business, while expanding its submarine cable business to generate synergies with its AIDCs,” it added. 

And it believes its AI efforts will help its mobile business recover. 

“In 2026, SK Telecom plans to apply AI across all areas of its telecommunications business – including products and marketing, networks and distribution channels – to enhance customer experience. For example, AI-driven automation across network design, deployment and operations is expected to improve customer value and drive productivity,” it noted. 

In addition, it will “advance its AI-based customer lifetime value (LTV) modelling to provide personalised products, membership benefits and distribution channels tailored to individual preferences. By accelerating its AI transformation (AX), SK Telecom will focus this year on restoring profitability in its mobile business while strengthening its fundamental competitiveness to secure a foundation for mid- to long-term growth,” it added. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV