SKT beats 4Q expectations

South Korea’s largest cellco SK Telecom says its fourth quarter profits beat analysts’ expectations thanks to improved sales of value added wireless services. SKT posted a KRW448 billion (USD454 million) net profit for the three months to the end of December 2005, up 29% year-on-year, but down 24% on a quarterly basis. Revenues from wireless data services rose 22% y-o-y to KRW661 billion to account for 25.2% of total turnover. Full year 2005 net profit rose 25% to KRW1.87 trillion, but analysts predict that will fall slightly to KRW1.8 trillion in 2006.