SK Telecom (SKT) booked revenue growth in Q1 on gains across all its business units and continued 5G adoption.

CFO Yoon Poong-young said the operator is focusing its efforts on completing a horizontal spin-off announced last month in the first half of the year and speeding growth of new ICT subsidiaries.

During Q1, net income grew 86.9 per cent year-on-year to KRW572 billion ($511.1 million), due in large part to higher equity gains from its stake in SK Hynix.

Revenue increased 7.4 per cent KRW4.8 trillion, backed by 16.8 per cent growth of new ICT businesses covering media, security and commerce to KRW1.52 trillion. Mobile service was up 1.9 per cent to KRW2.52 trillion, attributed to strong 5G subscriber growth.

The operator added 1.2 million 5G subscribers, with its total up 4.1 million at 6.7 million by end-March. Total mobile users rose 1.9 per cent to 29.3 million. ARPU declined 1.8 per cent to KRW30,213.

Revenue from its media business covering IPTV and broadband increased 17.6 per cent to KRW967 billion, and its commerce business rose 7 per cent to KRW203.7 billion.

Security unit ADT Caps’ revenue grew 20.3 per cent to KRW350.5 billion.

Capex declined 46.2 per cent to KRW165 billion. The operator aims to keep full year spending at a similar level to 2020, targeting fixed and wireless infrastructure improvements along with nationwide 5G coverage.