KT said on Tuesday it posted 2026 second-quarter revenue of 6.68 trillion won and operating profit of 648.3 billion won on a consolidated K-IFRS basis.

Revenue fell 10.1 percent from a year earlier and operating profit dropped 36.1 percent. KT said operating profit declined due to base effects from one-off gains on sales last year, but rose from the first quarter on expansion of growth businesses such as data centres and real estate and improved performance at content subsidiaries.

On a separate basis, revenue was 4.52 trillion won and operating profit was 389.0 billion won. Operating profit fell from a year earlier due to the impact of a customer rewards programme, but improved from the first quarter on a recovery in B2B business and cost stabilisation. Net profit for the period fell due to the impact of reflecting a penalty related to a personal information breach incident.

KT said its wireless business saw service revenue fall 1.8 percent from a year earlier due to the customer rewards programme, but subscriber numbers showed signs of recovery.

KT ran a customer rewards programme worth a total of 450.0 billion won from February to July 2026 as an apology over a hacking incident involving a leak of subscriber information.

Revenue from the fixed-line business edged down from a year earlier due to a decline in home fixed-line phone services despite an expanding subscriber base. The internet business grew 1.1 percent on rising subscriptions centred on gigabit internet and wider use of value-added services. The media business fell 0.5 percent from a year earlier due to lower advertising and pay-per-view revenue despite growth in IPTV subscribers.

Revenue from enterprise services fell from a year earlier due to base effects from the end of large-scale implementation projects last year, but strong performance continued in AX businesses such as AI and cloud, as well as corporate messaging and leased-line businesses. AX business revenue rose 22.3 percent from a year earlier on expanding demand for AI adoption led by the financial sector and double-digit growth at KT Cloud.

KT Cloud posted double-digit growth from a year earlier on the full-scale launch of new data centre operations and expansion of its DBO (Design·Build·Operate) business. KT said the data centre business was driven by the start-up effect of the Gasan DC and expansion of the DBO business, and that it completed construction of a public cloud based on a Seoul-North Gyeongsang multi-region to strengthen disaster recovery and high availability and expand its public and corporate customer base.

KT Estate improved performance due to the reflection of results from the Daejeon Dunsan development project and the effects of real estate sales.

Content subsidiaries also improved performance on a recovery in advertising and growth in the content business. KT nasmedia improved performance on balanced growth in digital out-of-home advertising and mobile platform advertising, while KT Studio Genie pursued domestic and overseas OTT partnerships and diversification of content distribution based on premium original content.

K Bank continued to grow on growth in loan assets and improved net interest margin. As of the end of June 2026, K Bank had deposits outstanding of 26.6 trillion won and loans outstanding of 19.8 trillion won, and its total number of customers in the second quarter rose to 16.45 million. K Bank plans to strengthen profitability in the second half by expanding loans centred on sole proprietors (SOHO) and improving margins.

KT is pursuing a growth strategy as an "AX platform company" and plans to continue strengthening profitability, liquidity of non-core assets and additional shareholder returns. It plans to make AX infrastructure and solutions a core growth axis and expand AX revenue by more than two times in 2028 compared with 2025, and further aims to become an Asia AX connection hub. To this end, it plans to secure an additional 1 GW of AIDC capacity and 90 Tbps of submarine cable capacity by 2031.

To strengthen profitability, KT plans to expand the scope of rationalisation targets for low-profit businesses and raise sales and operating efficiency through internalisation of AX. It also plans to accelerate liquidity of non-core assets, including idle real estate and investment assets.

KT Chief Financial Officer Hye-byung Min (민혜병) said, "KT achieved improved earnings compared with the previous quarter through efforts to transition into an AX platform company and improve profitability." He added, "In the second half, we will continue growth centred on the core portfolio, while continuing to enhance customer trust by strengthening customer information protection and security capabilities, and we will also implement our plans to enhance corporate value without disruption."