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Transcript
UR
Unidentified Company Representative
Management
[Foreign language] Good afternoon. Let's begin KT's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Presentation. This earnings release call is currently being webcasted live on our website, and you can follow the slides as you listen in on the call. Before we begin, please note that today's presentation includes financial estimates and operating results under the K-IFRS standard that have not yet been reviewed by an outside auditor. As we cannot ensure accuracy and completeness of financial and business data, aside from historical performances, please be reminded that these figures may change going forward. With that, I will hand it over to our CFO, Kim Young-Jin, to present on Q3 2022 earnings.
KJ
Kim Young Jin
Management
[Foreign language]
UR
Unidentified Company Representative
Management
Hello. I'm Kim Young-Jin, KT's CFO. I will begin with the performance highlights for Q3 2022. During the third quarter, we continued on with our digital platform transition and made preemptive responses to uncertain external environment. And as a result, we are seeing stronger growth and profitability from DIGICO and B2B. On a cumulative basis for the third quarter, consolidated service revenue was KRW 16,980.8 billion, which is up 6.3% on year and operating profit reported KRW 1,538.7 trillion, up 18.1% on year. Cumulative basis, standalone service revenue for Q3 was KRW 11,843.9 billion, and standalone operating profit reported KRW 1,057 billion, recording a growth of 2.0% and 8.3% year-over-year, respectively. Under the DIGICO strategy of expanding the playing field, we are seeing explosive growth from core businesses, which include B2B, DX, media and content, finance and cloud and IDC. In B2B business supported by KT's nationwide coverage, fixed wireless infrastructure and customized DX services for customers in different segments, we are leading the market by driving business DX digital transformation demand. The order volume is usually a leading indicator for top line revenue growth. And on Q3 cumulative basis, orders were up by 21% year-over-year, reaching KRW 2.97 trillion. AICC, which is a flagship service for B2B and DX, we are seeing expanding demand from the financial sector. And since embarking on a full-fledged business in 2021, we've been sustaining an uptrend in growth, driving Q3 2022 cumulative revenue up by more than 100% year-over-year. KT Cloud continues to post growth leading the public cloud market, gaining market share, #1 position in terms of number of services and winning businesses who migrate over to public cloud. Leading the innovation and development of the pay TV market, KT's IPTV reinvented itself under a new brand name, Genie TV back in…
OP
Operator
Operator
[Foreign language] [Operator Instructions] The first question will be provided by Hoi Jae Kim from Daishin Securities.
HK
Hoi Jae Kim
Analyst
[Foreign language] I would like to ask two questions. We've seen earnings growth up until Q3. Can you provide some color as to what your outlook is for Q4 and for the whole year in terms of profit? And also in connection with that, it would be helpful if you could also share your dividend outlook as well. Second question. Your wireless ARPU has been sustaining an uptrend of around 4%. What is your outlook for next year?
KJ
Kim Young Jin
Management
[Foreign language] Thank you Mr. Kim Hoi Jae for your question. Your question was, we were able to post positive growth up until Q3. You asked for more color with regards to what the Q4 outlook is and for the whole year as well and also to talk about the dividend? As I said in my presentation early on, if you look at KT's Q3 performances from our B2B business, driven by the demand for digital transformation for enterprises, we were able to see growth in terms of the order volume as well as the top line revenue. So on a Q3 cumulative basis, we've seen order volume grow by 21%, amounting to KRW 2.97 trillion. And this has laid a quite solid basis for our future revenue growth. We also continued to show quite robust top line in the telco business. We've seen premium subscribers grow for our 5G services and GiGA Internet. Now, we've also seen very salient growth from our media content, finance, IDC and cloud, our core businesses under DIGICO. Now in the remaining quarter, in Q4, we will continue to endeavor to make sure that we sustain this top line trend. And even beyond that point in time, we will continue to make sure we continue on with this revenue trend, and we do expect that more or less, they will be possible. Now, however, we have in front of us quite uncertain market backdrop and volatilities exist. So, we plan to be very efficient in terms of our cost spending, and we'll focus on profitability and margin as we enter into the Q4 and next year. On a Q3 cumulative basis, we were able to prove that we actually brought an improvement in profitability. And in the remainder time as well, we will endeavor…
OP
Operator
Operator
[Foreign language] The following question will be presented by Joonsop Kim from KB Securities.
JK
Joonsop Kim
Analyst
[Foreign language] I'm Kim Joonsop from KB Securities. I just have one question for you, which relates to the private 5G network project. I would like to understand what KT's view is with regards to this private 5G network and what your strategies are, as we see many players enter into the 5G -- the private 5G domain? I would like to understand what your take is on the overall trajectory of this domain.
KJ
Kim Young Jin
Management
[Foreign language] Thank you, Mr. Kim, for your question. You asked about what our strategies are and what our outlook is with regards to the private 5G network. Now this year marks the first year under the government initiative to actually take the private 5G network project as countries -- important -- country is a very important project. And we were able to see that there is a business opportunity here. Now the government has selected 11 different government projects. And of this, KT Consortium has won orders and projects in 4 main areas, which include public health care, aerospace, private manufacturing and 28-gigahertz education. And we are in the process of building out the 5G private network. Now, KT has a business opportunity and that is, it can be a company that actually builds out the private 5G network and also as an operator. And also, we can come up with various business opportunities together with other KT Group companies, the subsidiaries, by winning the 5G private network license. So at the KT Group level, we can be very flexible in engaging with the 5G private network. Now a typical project structure for a private 5G network is that the client will usually build out the assets, the 5G base station, as well as the 5G core that is a typical design. But in order to alleviate the cost burden of our clients, 5G base stations will be built out by the client themselves, but 5G core will be handled or will be handled by KT based on our internal cloud platform. And we are currently thinking of providing as a service to our customer clients.
OP
Operator
Operator
[Foreign language] The following question will be presented by Neale Anderson from HSBC.
NA
Neale Anderson
Analyst
I would like to ask about the competitive dynamics in both the content and the enterprise solutions market, please? The reason I’m asking is, I think all 3 large telcos are focused on this area. And I’m wondering if you’re seeing any cost inflation, particularly in terms of labor costs or specifically in the content market, the cost of content itself. That’s my first question. Second question relates to network slicing and the ability to charge different groups of users, different amounts depending on the technology parameters they’re receiving. When do you think you’ll be able to launch services using network slicing?
KJ
Kim Young Jin
Management
[Foreign language] Thank you very much for the question. I will first respond to your question about network slicing. Now if you think about the basic foundation that will support the future of 5G B2B services, we are expecting and hoping that network slicing will be an opportunity for us to really reevaluate the value that 5G network offers. Now, as 5G network slicing has been recognized by the government authorities as a specialized services, we now have an institutional basis whereby we could actually provide customized services in the B2B domain specific for a customer. And because that will enable us to diversify the pricing, the price that we charge to our customers depending on the customized and the bespoke product, we think from mid- to long term -- in the mid- to long-term horizon that will positively impact 5G profitability. So KT, before the end of the year, we are planning to release a multi-slicing services, basically, that slices up the network depending on the destination IP, thereby providing a specialized feature on a standalone SA basis. So we are, at this point, working on developing and releasing an enterprise-only SA services. And then you also asked about what our outlook is in terms of the possible cost inflation, especially in areas of content and B2B business. KT is currently expanding its portfolio around content and B2B, DX, but we have a very clear and distinct differentiation compared to our peers and that we engage in our business that is supported and underpinned by the platform, the physical network, as well as our sales capabilities. It is our view that we see such digital transformation and content. The industry itself is reporting a structural growth as we see rise in the demand from businesses for digital DX services, as well as increasing demand for content. And recently against the overall inflationary backdrop, yes, there is a pressure that is working to push up the costs. But we are not focusing on competing in a small slice of a market. We are focusing on expanding the market pie itself driven by the overall growth and market demand. So, we believe that there is a quite significant potential from the top line side. So even if there is a slight uptick in the costs, we plan to respond to that with growing our top line revenue, which will eventually can translate into improvement in profit as well. And also just to elaborate a little more, many businesses these days are facing upward pressure on their cost structure. And these companies in order to offset that rise in costs are looking to adopt digital transformation. So, we believe that, that will continuously drive DX-related demand. And KT, if we could really leverage this ICT capability that we actually have, we believe that we would be able to additionally generate demand.
OP
Operator
Operator
[Foreign language] Currently, there are no participants with questions. We will wait for a second until there is another question.
KJ
Kim Young Jin
Management
With no further questions, we would like to now close the Q&A session. Once again, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. This brings us to the end of KT's Q3 2022 earnings presentation. Thank you.