South Korea operator KT booked brisk profit growth in Q3 as revenue increased at a steady rate across all business sectors, with continued 5G adoption boosting ARPU.

Net profit grew 46.9 per cent year-on-year to KRW337.7 billion ($286.7 million). In an earnings call, CFO Kim Young-jin said profitability was aided by a slowdown in capex spending due to the ongoing global chip shortage.

Kim said full-year capex is forecast to reach a similar level to 2020, when it hit KRW2.9 trillion. In the first nine months of 2021 it spent just KRW1.47 trillion on capex.

Wireless service revenue increased 3.8 per cent to KRW1.7 trillion; handset sales rose 7.1 per cent to KRW815 billion.

Its 5G users base nearly doubled from a year earlier to end September with 5.6 million subs. Total subscribers remained stable at 14.3 million.

ARPU improved 2.7 per cent to KRW32,476, recording a fourth consecutive quarterly increase.

Steady subscriber growth drove a 2.4 per cent increase in broadband turnover to KRW510.7 billion and a 3.1 per growth in IPTV sales to KRW473.4 billion. B2B revenue rose 6 per cent to KRW727.7 billion, which it attributed to strong demand for digital services and data traffic growth.