Korea’s top 3 telcos tap overseas 5G market through differentiated features

Korea’s wireless telecommunications companies who were first in the world to migrate to 5G over the last year are appealing to overseas markets through distinctive features.

The nation celebrated the first anniversary of 5G commercialization after becoming the first country in the world to commercialize the technology on April 3 in 2019. Based on ample experiences of developing and upgrading the network for a year, the telecom firms have gone overseas, each pitching in differentiated strengths.

SK Telecom Co. that has been cooperating with the country’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. and No.1 mobile messenger operator Kakao Corp. in artificial intelligence technology concentrates on 5G business-to-business (B2B) sector.

It has become the sole Asian partner of Amazon Web Service (AWS) and plans to become the first firm to establish platforms of mobile edge computing, a key technology in the 5G network, across the country this year. SKT CEO Park Jung-ho said it is deepening “super-cooperation” with global companies and the efforts will yield some fruitful results this year.

KT Corp. sells smart solutions by combining 5G, AI and big data. The company is building a smart factory with the country’s largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries and plans to offer the manufacturing automation solutions to small- and mid-sized firms. It is also backing Samsung Medical Center and Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital for 5G-based smart hospital project.

The smallest in the group LG Uplus Corp. has built up software power. It signed an agreement to supply its 5G solutions to a Japanese mobile carrier after becoming the first telco in the country to provide its 5G content to China Telecom and Hong Kong Telecom. “We proved LG Uplus’ supremacy in 5G services over the past year,” the company’s vice chairman Ha Hyun-hoi said on Thursday, urging employees to continue their hard work to expand their presence in the global market.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]