SEOUL, South Korea-Korea Mobile Telecom reported strong growth in both its cellular and paging businesses in 1996, in addition to good interconnection revenue.
According to KMT President Dr. Jung Uck Seo, the company experienced an 85 percent increase in cellular revenue to $1.86 billion, and a 76 percent increase in cellular subscribers. KMT reports having nearly 3 million subscribers.
About 700,000 subscribers were on KMT’s Code Division Multiple Access network at the beginning of March, which represents a 67 percent share of the Korean CDMA market, KMT said. KMT’s competitor, Shinsegi Telecommunications Inc., also operates a CDMA network in Korea.
Average monthly cellular churn for 1996 was 1.49 percent, slightly higher than the 1.39 percent in 1995, KMT said.
Paging revenue increased 24 percent in 1996, accompanied by a 23 percent increase in paging subscribers, KMT reported. The company said it has 6.6 million paging customers. Average monthly churn for paging rose to 2.33 percent in 1996 from 2.04 percent in 1995. KMT said it has adopted more stringent control over past due accounts.
“Our corporate goals are to have 4.3 million cellular subscribers and 6.8 million paging subscribers by year-end 1997,” said Seo.
The Korean wireless market will be affected this year by the entrance of new personal communications services operators, the expansion of CDMA coverage and decreases in tariff, KMT said.
“Our total capital expenditures for 1997 are expected to reach $1.54 billion, with the bulk of the spending for the expansion of KMT’s CDMA network,” Seo said. The company expects its CDMA capacity will increase from the current 1.1 million to 3.2 million by the end of the year.
The CDMA service is now available in 78 cities in South Korea, reaching 80 percent of the population.
