South Korea’s largest mobile operator SK Telecom reported a 4.6 percent rise in second-quarter net profit despite higher marketing costs, mainly due to a rise in subscribers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Net profit rose to KRW311.6 billion (US$251 million) in 2Q09, whilst sales rose 4.7 percent to KRW3.068 trillion (US$2.5 billion)because of an increase in the number of subscribers largely from its mobile Internet data service.