Gwang-Seok Shin
Analyst · Korea Investment and Securities. Mr. Hue Jae Kim, please go ahead with your question
[Interpreted]. Good afternoon. I am Gwang-Seok Shin, KT’s CFO. 2015 was a meaningful year as it made 30th anniversary in Korea’s telecommunication history. And also because KT was able to bring solid turnaround and the structural cost improvement efforts positively changed customers’ perception of our product and services as we achieved quite a significant profitability improvement. In the wireless business by introducing leading-edge services such as data select rate plan introduced for the first time by KT and the media-pack which is a distillation of mobile content capabilities, we continue to enjoy subscriber net additions since the first quarter. For fixed line, GiGA internet subscriber increased to over 1.1 million and IPTV subscribers above 6.5 million helping with the unrivaled number one position in internet and IPTV. This year, KT plans to bring along a complete differentiation in its product offerings against competitors, transforming customer perception so as to use such edge as our growth engine for our core businesses. By the end of the year, we plan to expand GiGA coverage to 100% across apartments [ph] nationwide. A further investment in GiGA infrastructure which is KT’s core edge, we will lead offering of new services such as GiGA internet, GiGA Wi-Fi and GiGA LTE. With such a robust competitiveness across the fixed and wireless, we expect top-line growth from other fixed line businesses such as broadband internet and VDF to be more than offset in the decline in PSTN revenues starting this year. As such, we expect a meaningful change in KT’s revenue structure. In terms of new growth engines we will focus on generating results based on two main pillars of ICTV future convergence business and platform business. And in terms of five key areas of converged GiGA service, who are namely, smart energy, integrated security, next generation media, healthcare, intelligent transportation management, whose selecting and focusing will secure a business model that can be quickly deployed. And by converging, this business model with GiGA infrastructure, we will strive to transform into a platform based business around O2O, Syntex and IoT. In IoT based on intelligent infrastructure of big data and cloud, we will continue to deploy industrial IoT business model that would explore opportunities in conversion services with other industries. And accordingly, we plan to solidify home IoT service as well. KT will endeavor to achieve 2016 consolidated revenue of above KRW22 trillion underpinned by stronger telecom competitiveness and structural cost reduction and bring out continued improvement of profitability. In 2016, driven by KT’s number one technology and services, we will further strength growth and profitability potential of the telecom business. And through robust performance from future growth businesses, KT will strive to become a global number one. With that, let me now move on to 2015 results and 2016 business outlook. 2015 operating revenue declined 0.1% year-on-year on lower fixed line and merchandize revenue. Whilst service revenue increased 2.4% year-on-year to KRW19.5138 trillion driven by across the board growth except for fixed line business. Operating profit recorded a significant turnaround year-over-year at KRW1.2929 trillion enabled by a stronger fundamental competitiveness of our core business leading to subscriber and topline growth on top of structural cost innovation efforts. Net income came in at KRW631.3 billion and EBITDA was KRW4.3615 trillion. Next is statement on the financial position. 2015 debt to equity ratio is 141.2% down 45.3 percentage points, year-over-year. Net debt ratio is 49.9% down 42.7 percentage points, year-over-year. Next on CapEx. Total CapEx for 2015 is KRW2.397 trillion and this year we plan to be efficient within KRW2.5 trillion of CapEx. Next is on each line of business. Wireless revenue recorded KRW7.3707 trillion up 0.7% year-on-year. Wireless service revenue posted a growth of 3.4% year-on-year on higher LTE penetration, increase in high-quality subscribers led by greater use of data and sale of value added data products such as data top-up. LTE subscribers now account for 71% of the total base with Q4 ARPU at KRW36,491, which is up 0.8% Q-o-Q. In 2015, as we saw wireless competitive landscape change into one that is data centric during with KT’s fixed and wireless GiGA network and product edge were acknowledged by the customer leading to 3.4% annual growth in wireless service revenue. This year, based on a broader and faster GiGA network, we plan to provide fully differentiated data usage environment leading the market with premier customer service so as to bring wireless ARPU and service revenue growth of more than 2%. Next on fixed line business. Fixed line revenue on PSTN revenue decline was down 6.9% year-on-year to KRW5.1587 trillion. But equipped with GiGA internet that has broader coverage and maximum 10 times faster speed, in just one year and three months since it’s commercialization acquired 1.1 million subscribers for the first time in Korea achieving our 2015 strategic target. As a result, broadband revenue rebounded over the third quarter and the fourth quarter and we expect fixed line revenue to show improvements underpinned by GiGA products going forward. This year, broadband business is expected to continue with subscriber net addition trend reaching more than 2 million GiGA internet subscribers by the end of the year, sustaining the topline growth. Next on media and content business. Media and content revenue increased 10.2% year-on-year to KRW1.6623 trillion. Despite tougher market environment, IPTV endeavored to keep its leadership through contents that cater to customer preference and through preemptive expansion of new HD channels. Since 2011, our IPTV business has posted high average topline growth of 21.7% for five years until last year. Last year alone, 690,000 subscribers were acquired with total subscriber base reaching over 6.5 million. For this year, for IPTV, our target for subscriber net additions is 500,000 and standalone IPTV revenue growth of over 20%. Next is on financial and other revenues. Financial revenue increased 5.9% year-on-year to KRW3.411 trillion on good revenues from DC cards led by higher card usage. Other service revenue increased by 29.5% year-on-year to KRW1.911 trillion on high IT and solution revenue led by sound global ICT business. Next is on operating expense. 2015 operating expense came in at KRW20.9883 trillion which is down 7.6% year-on-year. Note, labor cost declined 15.7% Y-o-Y to KRW3.3035 trillion. KT will strive to find ways to structurally enhance cost efficiency and bring about improvements on profitability. Now that brings me to the end of the presentation on 2015 results and business outlook for 2016. For more details, please refer to the materials that we’ve provided. We will now take your questions.