SK Telecom said it recovered performance by delivering results in its artificial intelligence (AI) business and strengthening its fundamental competitiveness. It will also resume dividends that had been halted.

SKT reported on Thursday first-quarter consolidated revenue of 4.39 trillion won and operating profit of 537.6 billion won in a regulatory filing. Revenue and operating profit fell 1.4 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. Net profit fell 12.5 percent to 316.4 billion won.

An assessment says the company rebounded in profitability by recovering quarterly operating profit to the 500 billion won range for the first time since last year's USIM hacking incident. Revenue rose 1.5 percent from the previous quarter on the back of a recovery in its wireless business and growth in its AI data centre business. Operating profit topped 500 billion won on a quarterly basis for the first time in a year since the first quarter of last year, supported by efforts to improve productivity.

SKT stressed that it posted a clear rebound in the first quarter on the back of innovation in customer value and a recovery of trust. Its focused AI business also improved profitability and delivered results.

On a standalone basis, revenue was 3.11 trillion won, operating profit was 409.5 billion won and net profit was 332.7 billion won. It will also resume a quarterly dividend for shareholder returns. The first-quarter dividend is 830 won per share.

SKT posted a net increase of about 210,000 mobile handset subscribers in the first quarter. Mobile service revenue rose 1.7 percent from the previous quarter. SKT recently revamped its membership programme to expand customer benefits and improve ease of use. It is also pushing a tariff-plan overhaul to enhance customer choice.

SK Broadband, which handles the fixed-line business, posted revenue of 1.15 trillion won and operating profit of 116.6 billion won, up 3.2 percent and 21.4 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, helped by growth in high-speed internet.

The AI data centre (DC) business, a key growth engine, posted first-quarter revenue of 131.4 billion won, up 89.3 percent from a year earlier. Utilisation at AI DCs including Gasan rose, and revenue from GPUaaS (GPU-as-a-Service) increased, giving the business more momentum. SKT plans to absorb rising demand for AI infrastructure centred on global big tech and strengthen competitiveness across the entire AI DC value chain.

It will also expand its entry into the business-to-business (B2B) AI market. SKT plans to step up efforts to target the AI B2B market based on its capabilities as a "full-stack" operator spanning AI infrastructure, models and services, as well as its enterprise business experience. To that end, it recently set up an enterprise integration drive organisation directly under the chief executive.

In the AI business-to-consumer (B2C) area, it will enhance competitiveness by creating synergies between its AI agent business and the telecommunications industry. Its flagship AI service, A. (A.), plans to improve performance by linking up with an independent AI foundation model at the level of global models to strengthen its own competitiveness.

Park Jong-seok (박종석), SKT's chief financial officer, said the first quarter was a meaningful period in which the company produced results in line with its goal of strengthening fundamental competitiveness and restoring profitability through a streamlined AI business. He said it would continue to focus on recovering performance by delivering sustained results.