South Korean telecommunications provider KT posted a net loss in the second quarter of 757.2 billion won, compared to a net income of 133.4 billion won a year earlier, reported Telecompaper.com on July 30, 2014. Operating revenues totaled 5.89 trillion won, up 2.4 percent year-on-year. Wireless revenues were up 2.7 percent to 1.79 trillion won on subscriber base expansion and higher ARPU. Fixed-line revenues, however, slipped 6.6 percent to 1.40 trillion won, but media/content revenues were up 13.8 percent to 381.3 billion won on subscriber growth.

Finance/rental revenues totaled 1.01 trillion won, up 5.5 percent year-on-year. EBITDA plunged nearly 90 percent to 125.1 billion won from 1.23 trillion won, while EBITDA margin decreased by 19.2 percentage points to 2.1 percent. Capex was lower at 562.7 billion won versus 603.7 billion won a year earlier.

KT ended the quarter with 11.85 million smartphone subscribers, compared with 10.97 million a year earlier, representing 70.6 percent of KT’s overall subscriber base. LTE subscribers reached 9.4 million in the second quarter, accounting for 56.1 percent of the operator’s total customer base.